
Andrew Ro^ . 



Recollections of 

A Prisoner 

of War 



By ANDREW ROY 



SECOND EDITION 
REVISED 



COLUMBUS, OHIO 
J. L. TRAUGER PRINTING CO. 

1909 






. ^niUeS r Off 
WALTEfi ftc smiKSSSe 
JAN. 26, 1M» 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER. PAGE. 

I— The Battle 5 

II— Wounded 16 

III — Humanities of War 37 

IV— A War of Words 34 

V — Fighting Other Enemies 44 

VI— Hard Times 51 

VII— The Classics 59 

^ VIII— Change of Base 65 

^ IX— New Quarters 73 

SS^ X — Heartrending Scenes 80 

^ XI — Poetry in Prison 89 

~^^ XII — Discussing the Campaign 94 

XIII — Union Sentiment of the South 104 

XIV— Paroled 109 

XV — Visit from the G-eneral 116 

XVI — Fortress Monroe 123 

XVII— The Naval Academy 134 

XVIII— Clarysville 146 

XIX — Surgical Operations 159 

XX — Another Operation 166 

XXI— A Winter on the Eio Grande.. 176 
XXII — Recollections of Lincoln 198 



W 



Recollections of 
A Prisoner of War 

CHAPTEE I. 

THE BATTLE. 

'HEN the Civil War began, by the 
rebels firing on Fort Sumter, the 
President called for 75,000 volunteers for 
three months to suppress the insurrection. 
The Governor of Pennsylvania, foreseeing 
that the war would assume great magnitude, 
organized a division of 15,000 men in addi- 
tion to the quota called for by the President, 
which he named the Pennsylvania Eeserve 
Volunteer Corps. It consisted of thirteen 
regiments of infantry, one regiment of 
cavalry and several batteries of artillery. 

The division, which was commanded by 
Major-General George A. McCall, was di- 
vided into three brigades: the first being 



6 THE BATTLE. 

commanded by Brigadier-General John F. 
Eeynolds, the second by Brigadier-General 
George G. Meade, the third by Brigadier- 
General E. 0. C. Ord. The Pennsylvania 
Eeserves was the only division in the Union 
Array in which all Ihe regiments were from 
the same state. 

These three brigade commanders rose to 
high command : General Meade to the com- 
mand of the Army of the Potomac; Gen- 
eral Reynolds to the command of the First 
Corps in the Army of the Potomac (he 
was killed in the Battle of Gettysburg, July 
1, 1863) ; General Ord to the command of a 
corps in the Army of the Potomac. Tlie 
presence of the Pennsylvania Eeserves in 
"Washington, the day after the first battle 
of Bull Eun, saved the capital from being 
captured by the enemy. 

The division was in eighteen battles. Of 
the forty-seven regiments which sustained 
the greatest losses in battle, during the war, 



THE BATTLE. < 

forty belonged to the Army of the Potomac, 
eleven of which were Pennsylvania regi- 
ments, four of them being regiments of the 
Pennsylvania Reserve Volunteer Corps, and 
one of the four was the Tenth. In the 
assault of the Union Army at Fredericks- 
burg the Eeserves lost, in killed and wounded, 
more men than Picketts division at the Battle 
of Gettysburg. 

The Reserves went into action at Freder- 
icksburg with an effective force of 4,475 men, 
and lost as follows : 

Killed Wounded Missing Total 

175 1.241 457 1.873 

3-9 per et. 27.7 per ct. 9.7 per ct. 41.3 per et. 

Picketts division went into battle at Get- 
tysburg with an effective force of 6,204 men, 
and lost as follows: 

Killed Wounded Missing Total 

232 1.157 1.499 2.888 

3-7 per ct. 18.6 per ct. 24.1 per ct. 46.4 per ct. 

When the Seven Days Fight opened in 
front of Richmond, on the 26th of June, 



8 THE BATTLE, 

1862, the Pennsylvania Eeserves composed 
the extreme right of the Union Army, and 
occupied a strong position on the left bank 
of the Chickahominy River at Beaver Dam, 
near the village of Mechanicsville. The Re- 
serves had been recently detached from Gen- 
eral McDowell's command stationed at Fall- 
mouth, on the Rappahannock River, and 
sent as a reinforcement to General McClel- 
lan, who had promised the President that 
as soon as the division reached him he would 
attack and capture Richmond. 

McClellan intended to attack Lee on the 
twenty-fifth, but during the night of the 
twenty-fourth he received word, through his 
scouts, that Stonewall Jackson was advanc- 
ing witli his division, and three brigades of 
Ewells' for a formidable attack on the 
Union flank, and McClellan was thrown on 
the defensive. On the afternoon of the 
twenty-sixth our pickets were driven in at 
Meadow Bridge, and the Reserves were or- 



THE BATTLE. 9 

dered to fall into line of battle. The weather 
was hot and dry, and we could see by the 
clouds of dust that the rebels were advancing 
to give battle. 

The fighting started by a furious attack 
on the Pennsylvania Reserves at Beaver Dam. 
Our position was naturally a strong one and 
we had strengthened it still more by an 
active use of the pick and spade during the 
time that we were on the Peninsula. The 
rebels fought bravely; assaulting first one 
position, then another, in the hope of break- 
ing our lines; but they were repulsed at all 
points, until darkness closed the combat. 
They then withdrew out of reach of our fire. 
During the battle the rebels massed in 
column of division and charged a battery, 
which the Tenth Reserves was supporting. 
While the attacking column was crossing a 
swamp on the double quick, within a hun- 
dred yards of the battery, it opened on the 
charging column with grape and canister. 



10 THE BATTLE. 

The enemy was thrown into confusion and 
lied. During tlie night some of the wounded 
made piteous appeals to our men to cany 
them within the lines and give them water 
Our boys would gladly have done so; but 
were afraid of being fired on in the darkness 
by the enemy. 

The boys, who were greatly elated at the 
outcome of the battle, expected the fighting 
to be renewed on the following morning, and 
that they would be in Richmond before night. 
But when morning came we were ordered to 
fall back to Gaines Mill, six miles down the 
Chiekahoniiny, where the divisions of Mor- 
rell and Sykes were stationed. These troops 
composed the Fifth Army Corps, commanded 
by General Fitz John Porter, to which tlie 
Pennsylvania Reserves were temporarily at- 
tached. "WTien the boys were ordered to fall 
back they could not understand what it 
meant. They had repulsed the enemy at 
all points, and now were retreating before 



THE BATTLE. H 

him. The rank and file were not aware that 
the enemy had been reinforced during the 
night in overwhelming numbers, and would 
have destroyed our forces had we remained on 
the field. The movement developed itself 
after we reached Gaines Mill. We were not 
molested on the retreat, and reached our new 
line before noon. 

The division which attacked us at Beaver 
Dam was that of A. P. Hill, consisting of six 
brigades, and numbering twelve thousand 
men. Two of our regiments, the Sixth and 
Eleventh were absent on detached duty. We 
had less than eight thousand to oppose them; 
but our strong position more than made up 
for the superior force of the enemy. Stone- 
wall Jackson, who expected to join Hill 
before the battle opened, did not arrive until 
it was over. 

Hill followed McCall to Gaines Mill, hav- 
ing been reinforced by Jackson and Long- 
street with 35,000 men. The enemy ap- 



12 THE BATTLE. 

peared in force at two o'clock and attacked 
our line of battle, but could make no impres- 
sion on it, because of the entrenchments 
which protected our men. As soon as Jack- 
son and Longstrcet arrived, however, Jack- 
son, who assumed command, massed liis 
forces and hurled them with the utmost im- 
petuosity upon the Union lines. Porter sent 
for reinforcements and Slocum's Division 
was ordered to his assistance. Before they 
arrived our men had been driven from their 
entrenchments, and were falling back fight- 
ing. Slocum's men restored the combat, and 
threw the enemy on the defensive. We were, 
however, greatly outnumbered; but so stub- 
bornly did we fight that both Longstreet 
and Hill thought they had the whole Union 
Army in their front. 

The rebels hurled column after column 
upon our lines and forced them, by their 
superior numbers, to give ground again. 
Our position became so desperate that parts 



THE BATTLE. 13 

of regiments were sent to points which were 
hardest pressed. 

While this terrible strife was in progress at 
Gaines Mill, General Lee was making furious 
demonstrations on McClellan's lines, on the 
south of the Chickahominy, leading the 
Union general to believe that he was about 
to be attacked along his whole line. These 
demonstrations had the desired effect; they 
prevented McClellan from sending further 
reinforcements to Porter until it was too late 
to win the battle. 

General Magruder, who was in command 
under Lee, on the south side of the river, 
had only 25,000 men, while the force in front 
of him amounted to 55,000. All competent 
military critics are agreed that if McClellan 
had assumed the offensive, he would have 
taken Eichmond. General Magruder admits 
as much. In reporting the situation he 
says : "I received instructions enjoining the 
utmost vigilance. I passed tlie night with- 



14 THE BATTLE. 

out sleep. Had MeClellan massed his 
whole force in column, and advanced it 
against any point in our line of battle — as 
was done at Austerlitz, under similar cir- 
cumstances, by the greatest captain of any 
age — though the head of his column would 
have suffered greatly, its momentum would 
have insured him success, and the occupa- 
tion of our works about Eichmond, and con- 
sequently of the city, might have been his 
reward." 

On the opposite side of the Chickahominy, 
where the fighting was going on, the condi- 
tions were reversed. Porter had not more 
than 25,000 men including Slocum's rein- 
forcement, while Jackson had 55,000. The 
two armies, McClellan's and Lee's, were 
equal in numbers, but the rebels had nearly 
two to one where the battle was raging. Lee 
had completely outgeneraled MeClellan. 

The Pennsylvania Eeserves were brought 
into action late in the afternoon. The 



THE BATTLE. 15 

Tenth had been supporting a battery, but 
toward evening was moved on the firing 
line, and as the regiment was in the act of 
forming on the right, by file into line, Com- 
pany A commenced firing without orders 
into the Ninth Pennsylvania Reserves, which 
was in our front, hotly engaged with the 
enemy. The officers and a number of the 
cool privates cried, "Stop firing — the boys 
in front are our own men." 

After order was restored I looked along 
the line of our regiment and could see the 
muskets of the boys trembling. The sight 
did me a world of good, for I thought I was 
tjie only man in the regiment possessed of 
a feeling of fear. 



IG WOUNDED. 



CHAPTER II. 

WOUNDED. 

<3jlEF0KE the Tenth went into action, tlie 
Cr regiment was ordered to lie down, and 
when the command was given to charge bay- 
onets they sprang to their feet and made for 
the enemy. I was in the rear rank, but see- 
ing an opening between Company A and 
Company E, dashed into the gap. My 
comrade, on tlie left, liad his hat in his left 
liaiid and while waving it aloft and cheering 
lustily the enemy fired, and he fell dead from 
a bullet which pierced his heart. At the 
same moment I felt a terrible blow on the 
left side, as though some one had struck me 
with a club, and I was knocked half way 
round. I leaned upon my musket for sup- 
port but soon became insensible and fell. 
When 1 regained consciousness a comrade 
was leaning over me; he examined my cloth- 



WOUNDED. 17 

ing and found that a minie-ball had passed 
through my left side, a little above the groin. 

The volley which the enemy fired into our 
charging line, did not even stagger the regi- 
ment, and the rebel line broke and fled pur- 
sued by our men. The enemy replaced the 
gap in their line with fresh troops, who, in 
turn, forced the boys in blue to give ground. 
They retired slowly, loading and firing. After 
passing over my body the line halted, and for 
a few minutes I was lying between the two 
lines, under a terific fire from both sides. 
The rebels were furthest from me and their 
balls that fell short, sometimes threw the 
dirt over my clothes. I expected to be shot 
again every moment, and was terribly 
frightened. 

It does not require a great amount of cour- 
age to go through a battle creditably, for a 
soldier feels no fear while fighting. It is 
when he has to take the enemies fire and can- 
not return it, that he feels like running away. 



18 WOUNDED. 

1, certainly, would have run had I been able. 
In a few minutes, which I tiiought were 
houi's, the boys in blue went after the boys 
in gray again with the bayonet, and drove 
them back to their second line. The hos- 
pital corps came with a stretcher, carried 
me to the rear on their shoulders, and 
placed me in an ambulance. 

It already contained an occupant, a com- 
rade of the same company named Joseph 
Stewart. He had been shot in the head 
by a buckshot. This was the second time 
he had been wounded — the first time on 
the picket line, six months before — the ball 
having entered his cheek, passing out through 
liis neck, carrying away part of his jawbone. 
He had but recenth^ returned to duty, when 
lie received the second wound. He had 
been offered his discharge, but declined to 
accept it, declaring he would see the end of 
the war, or leave his bones on the "sacred 
soil f)!' Virsrinia." 



WOUNDED, 19 

A few yards from where the ambulance 
was standing, a battery of six guns was in 
position. It had no infantry support, they 
having been transferred to the firing line 
which the rebels were making superhuman 
efforts to break. A rebel regiment was 
massing in column of division to charge 
the battery and soon their yells rose wild 
and high. Our gunners fired upon them; 
the driver of the ambulance lashed his horses 
to a gallop. I turned my head to see the 
issue of the charge — the gunners were 
spiking the cannon before abandoning them. 

Wlien I was lifted out of the ambulance at 
the regimental hospital, which was in a 
hollow, the surgeons were busy with their 
work of mercy, dressing wounds. Tears 
were rolling down the cheeks of the assistant 
surgeon, and the hands and shirt sleeves of 
both were besmeared with blood. The as- 
sistant came over and handing me a bottle 
of liquor bade me take a good drink; I did 



20 WOUNDED. 

SO, when he added: ''Take more, it will do 
3'ou good." As soon as he had washed the 
blood from my wound I inquired if he 
thought it was fatal; he replied, "It was 
luclvy for you that the ball came out where 
it did." 

It was now sundown; the battle was still 
raging, but the roar of musketry too clearly 
indicated that our line was giving ground. 
Shortly after sundown it was broken in the 
center, but there was no stampede, for the 
regulars and zouaves held together and 
brought up the rear, retiring slowly and in 
good order. At dark loud shouts were 
heard in the rear, and were distinctly 
heard at the regimental hospital where the 
wounded were lying. The cheering came 
from General Meacher's Irish brigade, 
which was advancing as a reinforcement 
from the other side of the river. Stonewall 
Jackson thought our men were rallying, and 
General Whiting dispatched an aid to Gen- 



WOUNDED. 21 

eral Longstreet for reinforcements. But it 
was too late for further fighting, darkness 
having thrown her mantle of mercy over the 
blood-stained field. 

About nine o'clock the captain, the first 
lieutenant and two sergeants came over to 
the hospital to visit the wounded of the com- 
pany. After inquiring about my wound the 
captain said to me : "Roy, McClellan has 
taken Richmond." This report had spread 
through our lines and was generally be- 
lieved. McClellan and Porter had discussed 
the feasibility of attacking Richmond the 
night after the battle of Mechanicsville, and 
the general was then impressed with his 
ability to break through Lee's weakened 
lines; but lost heart when the time came 
to attack. 

The captain remained in the hospital un- 
til midnight, when he left to take charge 
of the company. Porter having been ordered 
by McClellan to withdraw his corps to the 



23 WOUNDED. 

south side of the Chickahominy. Before lie 
left I overheard the captain say to the sur- 
geon : — "What a pity for one so young to 
die so far from home and friends." "Cap- 
tain," said I, 

"Had I as many lives as I have hairs 
I could not wish them to a fairer death." 

Two days later the captain himself was 
shot through the body in the fourtli battle 
of the Seven Days' Fight and left on the 
field for dead. One of the boys of the com- 
pany remained with him, and nursed him 
back to life. Both fell into the hands of 
the enemy, and were sent to Richmond. In 
spite of his cruel wound and lack of proper 
treatment, the captain recovered, but was 
not able to longer serve his country. Could 
he have been spared to the army he would 
have risen to high command. He had been 
thirteen months at West Point before the 
war, and had drilled his company so thor- 



WOUNDED, 23 

oughly that it looked like regulars on the 
march or drill. 

All the wounded who were able to walk 
went with their commands to Savage Sta- 
tion^ on the opposite side of the river. 
Numbers of others were taken across in am- 
bulances. The two sergeants of the com- 
pany remained with me all night. They 
had endeavored to secure an ambulance to 
convey me across the Chickahominy and, 
failing to get one, offered to carry me across 
in a blanket; but I was suffering so much 
that I was unable to stand the trip. 

At daybreak the following morning the 
sergeants made a fire, and were boiling cof- 
fee for breakfast, when they observed a 
cloud of dust indicating the approach of the 
Confederates. They bolted for the woods, 
and escaped being captured, having gone 
but a minute when a Confederate vi- 
dette rode forward, with a navy revolver in 
his hand, and asked if we were wounded. 



24 WOUNDED. 

On being answered in the affirmative, lie re- 
plied, "Well, you deserve it for invading our 
country." I asked him if he knew where 
our army was; he answered, "It is whipped 
all to hell." Said I, "That is not my in- 
formation; I understand McClellan has 
taken Eichmond.*" He threw himself back 
in his saddle and roared with laughter, ex- 
claiming, "McClellan is killed." I told him 
1 (lid not believe it. "Well, he has had an 
arm shot off," and away he rode, holding 
his revolver leveled at arms length. 

My wound had pained me so severely all 
night that at times I could scarcely endure 
the agony it caused me; but toward day- 
break the pain subsided and I was resting 
easy when the vidette rode up to us. All 
the wounded had left, except seven or eight, 
two of whom liad died during the night. 
These two comrades suffered terribly, and 
uttered loud lamentations and groans until 
death kindly stepped in and relieved them 



WOUNDED. 25 

of their sufferings. One of the wounded, 
M. C. Lowry, of Company A, had re- 
ceived a flesh wound in the thigh. He had 
walked to the hospital after being shot; but 
the wounded limb afterward became so stiff 
and sore that he could not accompany the 
retreating column, and was made a prisoner 
in the morning. He had been a silent lis- 
tener to the conversation with the rebel 
vidette, and complimented me. He crawled 
on his hands and one leg to the edge of the 
woods and, procuring a stout stick, limped 
back to the fire, which the two sergeants 
had built, and made some coffee for him- 
self and associates. 

This man proved to be my guardian angel ; 
but for his careful nursing I must have 
died. After partaking of a frugal break- 
fast of coffee and hard tack we entered into 
conversation, and I found him very intelli- 
gent. He was a school teacher by profes- 



2G WOUNDED. 

sion, and had been a reader of books. His 
lionio was in Somerset, Pennsylvania. 

In the hurry of the retreat one of the hos- 
pital corps left his knapsack. It had been 
placed under my head, and 1 held on to it. 
It contained a blanket, a band belt, pen, 
paper, and ink, and a bundle of letters, 
all of which I kept, except the letters, which 
1 burned, as they had been written for no 
other eyes than his. We had unshing our 
knapsacks, haversacks, and canteens before 
going into battle, and the knapsack which I 
"captured" proved a special providence 
to me. 

I had noted down in a memorandum book 
a synopsis of each day's doings, and as it was 
in my knapsack I lost it. Some Confeder- 
ate soldier "captured" it and no doubt keeps 
it as a war relic. 



THE HUMANITIES OF WAE. 27 



CHAPTEE III. 

THE HUMANITIES OF WAR. 

«Jj|T[TZ JOHN POETEK had no sooner 
^ crossed the Chickahominy river with 
his retreating forces than he burned the 
bridges to prevent Stonewall Jackson from 
following in immediate pursuit. It took two 
days to rebuild these bridges, during which 
time the bulk of the rebel troops, which had 
fought at Gaines Mill, were bivouacked on 
the field. Jackson detailed a corps of men 
to gather together the wounded Federal 
prisoners. About ten o'clock of the forenoon 
of the day after the battle Confederate pri- 
vates carried the wounded on stretchers to 
a mansion which had been a hospital for 
our sick before the fighting opened. As 
they laid me on the ground one of them 
remarked: "This is the gamest Yankee 
that we have handled to-day." When they 



28 THE HUMANITIES OF WAR. 

lifted me on the stretcher, seeing that I was 
very severely wounded, they handled me with 
great care and did not hurt me, so I re- 
plied: "If 1 liave not complained it is due 
to your care and tenderness, and I thank 
3'ou for it."' 

The house was full to overflowing with 
sick and wounded, and I was placed on the 
gi'ound, under the shade of a large tree, 
which served as my quarters for the next 
two weeks. There were a number of large 
trees around the house, under whose pro- 
tecting shade about one-half of the prisoners 
found rest and shelter from the blazing mid- 
summer sun, until they were removed to the 
tobacco warehouse in Richmond. All the 
outhouses, fences, and part of the weather- 
boarding of the mansion had been used for 
fire-wood by our army. The owner of the 
plantation had removed his family to 
Richmond on the approach of the Yankees. 

He returned, a day or two after the fight, 



THE HUMANITIES OF WAK. 29 

and mixed freely with the wounded prison- 
ers. He told us that he did not know his 
own farm, so greatly had war's wide deso- 
lation deformed it. The most painful in- 
cident of his visit, he said, was the loss of 
a small Shetland pony, which belonged to 
his little boy. Since removing his family 
to Richmond, the little fellow had asked his 
father many times a day, when he was going 
to get his pony again. Xow it was gone and 
the father hated so badly to go back and tell 
the boy that the pony had been stolen by 
the Yankees. The news would almost break 
his heart. The planter was a man of splen- 
did physique, and was very much of a gen- 
tleman. He had no word of complaint to 
utter, treated the wounded with great 
courtesy, and recognized the fact that ruin 
followed on the trail of an invading army. 
Jackson detailed a number of Confederate 
surgeons to care for the wounded prisoners; 
this being a customary humanity of war. 



30 THE HUMANITIES OF WAE. 

A young doctor approached me and asked 
to see my wound. He was dressed in a blue 
uniform and I mistook him for one of our 
own surgeons^ and asked if he were a Federal 
surgeon. "Sir," he replied, snappishl\% "do 
you mean to insult me?" "No, sir," I re- 
torted, "I meant to honor you." After he 
had washed the blood otl' both sides of the 
wound, I asked him wliat he thouglit of my 
cliances of recovery. "Sir, you cannot live 
three days," was his reply, delivered in a 
bhmt and unsympathetic voice. It is 
strange, but ti'ue, in all wars, that the non- 
combatants are overcome with war rage, 
while the soldiers who have met in battle 
have little feeling against each other. 

Surgical science was not as far advanced 
during the Civil War as it is now, and this 
was not the only case of a surgeon being 
mistaken when he told a wounded soldier 
that he could not live. 

A rude operating table was constructed 



THE HUMANITIES OF WAR. 31 

and placed in the shade of a tree, and the 
surgeons addressed themselves to the work of 
amputation. More regulars than volunteers, 
in proportion to their number, were 
wounded in the limbs, and suffered the loss 
of a leg or arm. All the patients were put 
under the influence of chloroform, but a 
number of them regained consciousness dur- 
ing the operation, and swore worse than the 
British army did in Flanders, as they 
writhed in their agony. The surgeons were 
with us for two days at the plantation 
house. After treating all the wounded 
they rolled up their instruments and started 
out to renew their labors of mercy at some 
other hospital on the battle-field. We were 
left without bandages, simplex cerate, or any 
other necessary articles for dressing our 
wounds. We were also without medicine 
for the treatment of the sick. 

Jackson, however, detailed six unwounded 
prisoners to act afs cooks and nurses. These 



32 THE HUMANITIES OF WAR, 

poor fellows had more than they could do for 
the first week, to furnish water to cool our 
fevered wounds and quench our thirst. 
There was a fine spring of clear, cold water 
about fifty yards from the hospital. The 
nurses carried this water in canteens to the 
wounded. One of the nurses was a choleric 
Frenchman, who had seen service under Na- 
poleon the Third. He was very industrious 
— running to the spring with a load of can- 
teens. As he returned each trip a score of 
empty canteens would be raised at arms 
length, their owners yelling at the top of 
their voices : "Frenchy, Frenchy, fill my can- 
teen." The little Frenchman's vocabulary of 
English was rather limited, and when his 
temper got the better of his big heart, he 
would relieve his surcharged feelings in 
French, gesticulating and talking twice as 
fast as an American could. Some of his sen- 
timents would not do to translate and print. 
I had become so weak from loss of blood 



THE HUMANITIES OF WAR. 33 

that^ when I was raised to a sitting posture 
to have my wound dressed. I became stone 
blind. The terrible pain which I at iirst ex- 
perienced had, however, subsided and I could 
converse freely. Quite a number of the citi- 
zens of Richmond had ridden out to the bat- 
tle field, and were mingling with the prison- 
ers. One of them, noticing that the iiies 
were swarming around my wound, cut a 
leafy switch from the tree overhead and, 
sitting down beside me, brushed them away. 
He chatted with me in a kind and friendly 
manner, inquired about my home and my 
friends, and when he left handed me the 
switch and urged me to use it constantly. 



34 A WAR OF WORDS. 



CHAPTER IV. 

A WAR OF WORDS. 

/|\ N Sunday, June the twenty-ninth, 
^^ Stonewall Jackson rode in camp, and 
I got a good look at the already famous 
Confederate general. He was resting on his 
horse, leaning sideways on his saddle, with 
one foot out of the stirrup. He was not a 
man of distinguished appearance. His gray 
uniform was covered with dust, and he 
seemed to have a tired, dreamy, far-away 
look, reminding one of some well-to-do far- 
mer. But notwithstanding his modest and 
unassuming hearing he was, I verily helieve, 
the ahlest general which the Civil War pro- 
duced on either side. He was killed too 
early in the war to fill a large space in its 
history. Had his life heen spared the war 
might have had a different ending. It was 
at Jackson's suggestion that Eee assumed 



A WAE OP WORDS. 35 

the oifensive in the campaign of the Seven 
Days' Fight, and so skillfully did Stone- 
wall mask his movements in leaving the 
Valley to reinforce Lee, that neither Shields 
nor Fremont, who were in his front to hold 
him there; nor the Secretary of War, nor 
McClellan, knew anything about his position 
until he suddenly appeared on McClellan's 
right flank and put the Union general on the 
defensive. 

While he lived he was Lee's strong right 
arm. Lee never lost a battle when Jackson 
was with him; he never gained a victory 
after Jackson was killed. Cromwell and 
Jackson were men of the same stamp; both 
trusted in God, but kept their powder dry; 
both were alike invincible in war. Next to 
Cromwell, England never produced a general 
of equal ability to Jackson — not even the 
Iron Duke. But he was fighting against 
the civilization and enlightened public senti- 
ment of the nineteenth century, and that God 



36 A WAR OF WOIIDS. 

to whom he so often and so devoutly prayed 
to vouchsafe his blessings on the Confeder- 
ate cause, could not smile with approval on 
the upbuilding of a nation founded on a 
corner-stone of human slavery. 

Many of the rank and file of Jackson's 
arm}', while awaiting the rebuilding of the 
bridges across the Chickahominy, mingled 
with the wounded prisoners, and discussed 
with them the causes and the probable result 
of the war. Some of them were bitter and 
defiant in statement, declaring that every 
man, woman and child in the South would 
die in the last ditch sooner than submit to 
subjugation. Quite a number of the privates, 
and particularly the non-commissioned 
officers, wei-e men of good social standing, 
and were well educated. These men laid the 
blame on such men as Charles Sumner, Hor- 
ace Creeley and William Lloyd Garrison, as 
the cause of the war. The majority of the 
privates, however, were of the class known 



A WAR OF WORDS. 37 

as the poor whites of the South. Few of 
this constituency could read and write intel- 
ligently ; but they were as ready with ar- 
gument as with their muskets to defend their 
positions; they were, however, better fighters 
than debaters. They spoke with the accent of 
the darkeys of the Southern plantations. 
None of them had ever read a line of the 
Constitution, but they were ever appealing 
to it in proof of the justness of their cause. 
One of the privates of this class and I 
held a very friendly conversation on the war 
question. He belonged to an Alabama regi- 
ment, and was barefooted. Before leaving 
he asked me if I had anything to eat; I an- 
swered that I had not; whereupon he thrust 
his hand in his haversack and drawing out a 
large hard-tack cracker, broke it in two and 
tendered me one of the pieces, stating it was 
all he had. I thanked him kindly, but de- 
clined the friendly offering, telling him that 
I could not eat, and that we would be fur- 



38 A WAR OF WORDS. 

nislied rations by the commissary; lie still 
insisted, but I finally induced him to put it 
back in his haversack. My shoes were lying 
beside me and I tendered them to him, but 
he at first refused to accept them ; I urged him 
to take them, stating that I had no use for 
them, and would get another pair long before 
I would be well enougli to wear them. He 
finally consented to take them as a present 
from me. Having tried them on and find- 
ing that they fitted him, he thanked me from 
the bottom of his liearL and went on his way 
rejoicing. I have always regretted that I 
did not ask his name and home address, as I 
would have gladly renewed his acquaintance 
after the war, in case he survived it. Scenes 
like these leave an indelible impression on 
the mind. 

M. C. Lowry and I were the only two 
members of the Tenth Pennsylvania Reserves 
located at this hospital. We were both laid 
under the shade of the same tree. He was 



A W4.B, OF WOEDS. 39 

much less severely wounded, and was much 
stronger than I. He was intensely patriotic, 
and neither wounds nor privations could 
make any impression on his dauntless heart. 
He engaged earnestly in discussing the issues 
of the war with the more intelligent South- 
ern soldiers; told them frankly but kindly 
that the war would never cease until all the 
seceded states returned to their allegiance to 
the General Government. Hearing one of 
our boys say to a rebel soldier that the war 
was now practically over ; that if the govern- 
ment did not put a stop to it the people 
would rise up in their might and stop it 
themselves, Lowry roared at him in rising 
anger: "You're a damned liar." "There," 
exclaimed the Southern soldier, "There is a 
brave man — there is a man who is not afraid 
to speak his mind." On another occasion, 
having got into a discussion with a citizen of 
Eichmond, evidently a man of some conse- 
quence in the city, about the relative social 



40 A WAR OF WOIJDS. 

status and intelligence of the people of the 
Nortli and South, the citizen said, among 
other things, that a Southern man knew 
more about Chesterfield in five minutes than 
your Northern mudsill did in a lifetime. 
Lowry'is eyes flashed fire as he retorted: "[ 
have not found all Southerners gentlemen 
and I'm damned it' 1 am talking to a gentle- 
man now." The boasting son of the South 
collapsed. 

The three days of grace which the rebel 
surgeon had informed me would be my al- 
loted span of life having expired, and feel- 
ing very weak, although not quite ready to 
yield up the ghost, I scrawled a brief note 
to my mother, informing her that I had been 
very severely wounded in the battle of Gaines 
Mill three days before and was a prisoner, 
with many other wounded men; that my 
wound was probably fatal, and that as I had 
no way of sending the letter through the 
lines, I would put it in my blouse, and if 



A WAR OF WORDS. 41 

I died the soldiers who buried me would 
find it in my pocket and mail it as soon as 
they could. Two comrades of the company 
I belonged to, however, had written and 
informed her that her son had been mortally 
wounded and left with the enemy. Two days 
later one of the comrades, Thomas Hawley, 
was himself killed, struck by a cannon ball 
which carried away one of his legs, at the 
battle of Glendale. The other, Hugh McMil- 
lan, was killed at the second battle of Bull 
Eun, the following August. 

The following is a copy of the letter as I 
remember it: 

"Gaines Mill, Va., June 30, 1862. 
Mrs. Mary Roy, 

Frostburg, Alleghany Co., Md. 

My Dear Mother — Three days ago I was 
wounded in the left side, the ball passing 
through my body just above the groin, in a 
bayonet charge at the battle of Gaines Mill, 
and the wound is probably mortal. 

I am a prisoner of war, and am left with 
many others on the battle-field. I will keep 



42 A WAE OF WOBDS. 

this letter in my blouse pocket, and if 1 die it 
will be sent you by some of my comrades after 
they are exchanged. 
Dear mother, farewell. 

Your loving son. 

ANDREW ROY. 

Jn a day or two after penning the note to 
uiy mother I began to gain strength, and the 
day before the prisoners were transferred to 
Richmond, tore it up. On receiving my 
comrades' letter, mother put on mourning, 
and was wearing it when I wrote to her, after 
being paroled, that I was back in "God's 
country" once more. 

The sL\ nurses, and the less severely 
wounded wlio were able to assist them, had 
more than they could attend to, minister- 
ing to the sick and helplessly wounded. As 
soon as I had recovered a little strength, T 
crawled to the spring to fill my canteen. 
Having no trousers, I wrapped my blanket 
around my body as a Scottish Highlander 
wears his kilt, and fastened it to my waist 



A WAK OF WORDS. 43 

with the yellow band belt. Having no shirt, 
I buttoned up my blouse. Notwithstanding 
these precautions the mosquitoes would find 
a bare spot and plunge their lances in it. 



44 riGHTIXG OTHER ENEMIES. 



CHAPTER V. 

FIGHTING MAGGOTS AND MOSQUITOES. 

'TJJL^ EING still too weak from suffering and 

Cr loss of blood to fight the flies that 
swarmed around my wound, it became filled 
with maggots, as the Richmond citizen pre- 
dicted it would, in case 1 did not keep them 
away with the switch he gave me. Every 
one of the very severely wounded became af- 
flicted equally with myself, with these pesti- 
ferous vermin. My friend, Lowry, whose 
wound was a flesh one, fought the flies away 
and was not a victim to maggots. He ad- 
dressed himself to the task of cleaning 
them out of my wound. He whittled down 
a short stick to a point, procured a leaf from 
the tree overhead, and with those rude sur- 
gical instruments attacked the enemy. He 
used the stick to pull out the vermin, holding 



FIGHTING OTHER ENEMIES. 45 

the leaf under the wound to catch and throw 
them away. 

Lowry made daily attacks, and soon gained 
ground, but was not able to clean them all 
out. The wound was about six or seven 
inches long, and although he attacked the 
maggots from front and rear alternately, he 
could not reach the enemy's center. He was 
a good singer, and while digging deep into 
the wound with his stick, sang the beau- 
tiful song of "Annie Laurie," which every 
soldier knew by heart, and which on the 
march the whole army would often sing with 
such volume of voice that it could be heard 
several miles distant. While Lowry was 
chanting the song his eye had a dreamy look, 
for his mind was back in the hills of his na- 
tive state, where "the girl he left behind" 
lived and loved him; and it revived many 
memories of the land of my birth and boy- 
hood. I copy the song from memory : 



46 FIGHTING OTHER ENEMIES, 

"Maxwellton braes are bonnie, 

Where early fa's the dew; 
'Twas there that Annie Laurie 

Gaed me her promise true: 
Gaed me her promise true, 

Which ne'er forgot shall be; 
And for bonnie Annie Laurie 

I'd lay me doon and dee. 

"Her brow is like the snaw-drift 

Her throat is like the swan; 
Her face it is the fairest 

That e'er the sun shone on — 
That e'er the sun shone on. 

And dark-blue is her e'e: 
And for bonnie Annie Laurie 

I'd lay me doon and dee. 

"Like dew on the gowan lying 

Is the fa' of her fairy feet: 
And like simmer soft winds sighing, 

Her voice is now and sweet — 
Her voice is now and sweet. 

And she's a' the world to me: 
And for bonnie Annie Laurie 
I'd lay me doon and dee." 

One poor fallow, wlio lay next to me, had 
'oeen wounded in the neck and was literally 
covered with maggots. Wlien the nurses 



FIGHTING OTHER ENEMIES. 47 

lifted him to a sitting position to dress his 
wound, the sight was heart-rending. He 
could not speak, being too far gone for 
utterance, and died the following day. 

The Richmond government, as soon as it 
was informed of the condition of our 
wounded, sent out a supply of turpentine 
to our nurses, which they poured into our 
wounds. The maggots now bit harder than 
ever. It was a question for some hours 
whether they would kill the wounded or the 
turpentine would kill the maggots. The en- 
durance of the soldiers triumphed, and we 
were not further troubled with the pestifer- 
ous vermin. 

But we still had another enemy to meet, 
the mosquitoes. They bit harder than any 
mosquitoes that I have ever seen, before or 
since. Every time they inserted their long, 
sharp bills into out poor bodies they drew 
blood. We fought them off with some degree 
of success during the day, but while asleep 



48 IIGHTIXG OTilEK ENEMIES. 

at night we were at their mercy, and tliey 
were strangers to mercy. We were awakened 
again and again by the pain of their merciless 
lances, and in the morning our faces looked 
in many cases as though we had been in a 
prize fight. 

Many melancholy scenes were witnessed 
during our sixteen days* sojourn on the battle 
field. Among the more very severely wounded 
was a tall boy, evidently not more than six- 
teen years of age. He was shot in the back, 
and the wound paralyzed both of his legs. He 
had been laid down in the shade of the 
planter's house; as the day advanced the 
shade left him. and he was exposed to the 
fierce rays of a midsummer sun. He would 
then call piteou.'ily for somebody to move 
him over into the shade, and if his call was 
not immediately answered would burst out 
in loud lamentation. One of the wounded, 
a regular, whose arm had been shot away in 
battle, went over to him and told him that 



FIGHTING OTHER EISTEMIES. 49 

if he did not cease crying he would horse- 
whip him. "I am wounded," moaned the 
poor boy. "So are we all wounded; but 
that is no excuse for a soldier playing the 
baby," cried the one-armed soldier. 

Men died every day from the severity of 
their wounds; or from lack of medical treat- 
ment. The nurses carried the dead out about 
twenty or thirty steps from the camp and 
threw a few shovelfuls of dirt over the 
bodies. The rain cracked the thin covering 
of earth, exposing the bodies which had be- 
come a mass of maggots. General Sherman 
never said a truer thing than, '^ar is Hell." 

Among the slightly wounded was a tall 
and handsome man about thirty years of age. 
He had been wounded in the knee and ought 
to have gotten well soon; he had a wife 
and family whom he dearly loved. He fretted 
so much about them that it made him sick. 
He would often say, "Oh, if I could only 
send word to my wife and children what a 



50 FIGHTING OTHER ENEMIES. 

load it would take off my mind;" then he 
would ask the comrades, "Do you think we 
will ever get out of this place?'' 1 en- 
deavored to comfort the poor fellow by telling 
him that wars alwaj^s produce similar suffer- 
ing and privation, and hoped that we would 
all live to tell our friends the thrilling story 
of our prison life. 



HAKD TIMES. 51 



CHAPTEE VI. 

HARD TIMES. 

9i FTEE Sonewall Jackson's command 
^ left to join their comrades in pursuit 
of McClellan's retreating army, and the 
Eichmond citizens had become tired of visit- 
ing the battlefield and looking at the wounded 
Yankee prisoners, we were left alone 
in our misery. The more slightly wounded 
were becoming able to hobble to the spring 
for water to dress their wounds and quench 
their thirst. All the prisoners except the in- 
curably wounded became more cheerful and 
light-hearted as their strength began to come 
back to them. 

Occasionally some convalescent Confeder- 
ate soldier would pass en route to join his 
regiment, and leave a copy of a Eichmond 
paper, which we eagerly devoured, for we 
possessed no means of getting news about 



52 HARD TIMES. 

our own army, uor ol' sending conuminica- 
tions through the rebel lines, and anything 
in the line of a newspaper was "a, welcome 
visitor to our lionie circle.'' The Confederate 
papers were full of the most absurd accounts 
of the series of battles which occurred dui'ing 
the six days of McClellan's retreat, and pre- 
dicted that the Yankee government would 
soon acknowledge the independence of the 
Southern Confederacy. 

I had lost my cap while being lifted into 
the ambulance; liad given my shoes to a 
kind-hearted Confederate soldier who was 
bare-footed ; had my pants taken off when my 
wound became filled with maggots, and a 
straggling Johnny Reb stole them; had torn 
up my sliirt for bandages; and all my worldly 
possessions in the way of clothing consisted 
of my blouse, a pair of socks, and a blanket — 
the latter I found in the knapsack which I 
had picked up at the Regimental Hospital 
the dav after the 1)attle of Gaines Mill, but 



JIARD TIMES. 53 

"Man wants but little here below. 
Nor wants that little long." 

I wrapped my body in the blanket, kept my 
blouse buttoned up to protect myself from 
the lances of the mosquitoes, and having re- 
gained a little strengh, fought off the flies 
as best I could with a leafy switch; poured 
cold water on my wound, which cooled the 
fever and kept down the inflammation; and 
was not altogether unhappy. Lying under 
the shelter of a friendly tree, I breathed the 
pure, sweet air of heaven, and heard the 
sweet songs of birds. 

There were several heavy rains the first 
week of our imprisonment. During the 
storm I took refuge in the planter's house. 
It was so full of wounded men that the air 
was foul from the emenations of their lungs 
and wounds, and I was glad to get back 
under the tree as soon as the rain was over. 
Many of the wounded preferred to bide the 
pelting of the pitiless storm to the sicken- 



54 HARD TIMES. 

ing stench of the house. Their frames had 
become so toughened by exposure in the 
bivouac and on the march that a shower of 
rain iiad no terrors for them. When the sun 
came out, their clothes soon dried on their 
backs. 

Depressing as the situation was, there was 
never a single regret expressed by any of the 
wounded that they had enlisted to fight for 
the preservation of the Union. All were ready 
as soon as their wounds were healed, to re- 
turn to duty and assist in the overthrow of 
the rebellion, that the Government, be- 
queathed by their fathers, might be handed 
down unimpaired to their children. 

After we had been nine days on the bat- 
tle field everything in the commissary had 
been eaten up. The conviction forced itself 
upon us that the Eebel government had de- 
liberately determined to let us die of starva- 
tion; and curses both loud and deep were 
heaped upon Jeff. Davis ajid his despicable 



HAKD TIMES. 55 

Confederacy. We reasoned that a govern- 
ment which would allow wounded prisoners 
of war to remain on the battlefield without 
shelter, or medicines, or medical attendants, 
was heartless enough to abandon them to die 
of starvation. 

In the hasty retreat of our troope across 
the ChickaJiominy, the commissary depart- 
ment had thrown out some wagon loads of 
hard tack near where we lay; but the recent 
rains had reduced the whole of it to a pulpy 
mass, bespattered with mud. The nurses and 
the wounded who could walk went after this 
dirty paste, selected the best of it, and 
brought it to their helpless comrades, and 
for two days this was the only food we had. 
Sharing the general feeling that we had been 
abandoned to perish of starvation, I penned 
a vigorous letter to one of the Richmond 
papers, protesting against such inhuman 
treatment, and closed the communication 
with the statement that "the brave but un- 



56 HARD TIMES. 

fortunate prisoners knew how to die for the 
Union." 

1 read the letter to two of ray comrades, 
Lowry and Sayers, for their opinion of its 
propriety. Both heartily approved of it. 
Lowry ;, however, asked me to erase the word 
"hrave," stating that it smacked of boasting; 
but Sayers stood up for the letter as it was 
written, and said that if we were to die of 
starvation it was well to let the Eebel gov- 
ernment know that we died game, and Lowry 
yielded. But before an opportunity offered 
to send the letter into Richmond, a supply 
of hard tack was sent out to us. 

Lowry was killed at the battle of Freder- 
icksburg the following December ; but Sayers 
survived the war, and is still living. We 
did not hear from each other for several 
years after we were paroled, when I received 
the following letter from him : 



HARD TIMES. 57 

Waynesburg, Greene County, Pa., 
July 10, 1866. 
Mr. Andrew Roy, Stiaron, Pa.: 

Dear Sir — I came across a Scotchman from 
West Virginia the other day, and in our sociable 
I told him I would like to know the where- 
abouts of a countryman of his who served in 
the Tenth Pennsylvania Reserves, by your 
name — the man who laid with me on the 
battlefield of Gaines Mill, a prisoner of war — 
and I am informed that you are the man. 
Were you not wounded in the groin, and do 
you not remember a man of the Eighth Penn- 
sylvania dressing your wound, and assisting 
or rather partly dictating a letter to the Rich- 
mond Dispatch about the starvation of our 
prisoners, when happily hard tack was brought 
the same evening by the rebels, which we ex- 
changed for flour? We saw Stonewall Jack- 
son Sunday, June 29th. 

It was not my suffering with you that made 
me inquire for you, but your grit, or otherwise 
true patriotism, though a wounded soldier, in 
defending the cause of the Union against the 
rebel soldiers and citizens, who visited the 
battlefield after the retreat of our army. How 
have you been prospering since the war? 
Please answer, and I shall be glad to hear 
from you. Your comrade, 

ROBERT A. SAYERS. 



58 HAED TIIVIES. 

Next to Lowry, Sayers was the best friend 
I had. He was wounded in the thigh and 
was soon able to limp about with the aid of a 
sapling of the forest. He was well educated, 
and was a college student when the war 
broke out. He brought nie water from the 
spring and dressed my wound. We have met 
since the war and still correspond. 



THE CLASSICS. 59 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE CLASSICS. 

/lA UITE a number of the wounded pris- 
ts oners were men of superior education, 
and possessed a taste for the classics. Not 
having access to books, they whiled away the 
lazy, leaden stepping hours rehearsing the 
works they had read, and had eager listeners. 
I was fortunately able to quote many pass- 
ages from Shakespeare, Byron and Burns, 
also selections from Books V and VI of Par- 
adise Lost, which I had memorized while 
digging coal in the mines of Arkansas the 
year before the war, and they were still fresh 
in my memory. These books relate to the Ee- 
bellion in Heaven, where Satan, fraught with 
envy against the Son of God, summoned all 
his regent powers to give battle to the Al- 
mighty, and establish his throne equal to 
that of the Most High. 



60 THE CLASSICS. 

Millions of fierce-contending angels fought 
on either side, who tore the hills from their 
foundations and hurled them in mid-air 
against each other's line of battle. Horrible 
confusion rose, which would have wrecked 
Heaven itself, had not the Almighty com- 
missioned His Son to go to the front, in 
his Great Father's Might, armed with his 
bow and thunder to assume command of the 
loyal angels. The presence of the Son 
withered all the strength of Satan and his 
rebellious crew, who fled like a herd of tim- 
orous goats before the victorious army of 
the Great Son of God, who pursued them: 

"With terrors and with furies to the bounds 
And crystal walls of Heaven, which opening 

wide 
Rolled inward, and a spacious gap disclosed 
Into the wasteful deep." 

Whoever has read Book VI of Paradise 
Lost must have been struck with the parallel 
between the Civil War in Heaven, and the 



THE CLASSICS. 61 

Civil War in the United States, Both wars 
had their origin against constitutional au- 
thority. Satan and his followers rebelled, 
because the Almighty had selected His Only 
Begotten Son to be the head of the govern- 
ment in Heaven; Jeff. Davis and his follow- 
ers rebelled because the voice of the people, 
which is the voice of God, had selected 
Abraham Lincoln to be the head of the gov- 
ernment in the United States. Satan's army 
was successful in the early part of the war; 
Jeff. Davis' army was successful in the early 
part of the war. Satan's Rebellion ended in 
sudden collapse; the Southern Rebellion 
ended in sudden collapse. Satan was im- 
prisoned in Hell; Jeff. Davis in Fortress 
Monroe. Neither of these great leaders 
ever asked for pardon. 

I have never met an American who was 
not an admirer of the poetry of Robert 
Burns. The Boys in Blue were no exception, 
and I was called upon to recite "Tam 



G2 THE CLASSICS. 

O'Shanter," the "Cottei-'s Saturday Night/' 
and everything else 1 had memorized of 
Scotia's darling poet. Passages from 
Shalvespeare, Byron, Longfellow, Bryant and 
AA'hittier were read from memory hy one or 
another of the comrades, during the sixteen 
days we passed together under the open sky. 
The prisoners represented five or six dif- 
ferent states, but the majority of them were 
from Pennsylvania, New York and Michi- 
gan. Quite a number were regulars who 
represented no state in particular. One of 
the regulars was an Irishman, who possessed 
a fund of Irish stories, which he would relate 
with the vivacity of disposition and gaiety of 
manner for which the Irish race is generally 
and justly famed. Although a Catholic, he 
could crack a joke at the expense of the priest 
with the zest of a Scotch Presbyterian. One 
of his stories was about a countryman of his, 
who was a hea\7' drinker, but otherwise a 
fine fellow. He had been induced bv a 



THE CLASSICS. 63 

number of friends, who recognized his many 
good qualities of head and heart, to join 
the sons of temperance. For some time he 
held steadfastly by his pledge. At last, 
however, his old craving for drink got the 
better of him, and placing an empty glass 
behind his back, he asked some of the by- 
standers to put a sup of liquor into it unbe- 
known to him. Lincoln used to tell this 
story, locating the scene in Springfield, 
Illinois. 

Another story of our friend was that of a 
man who went to the priest to get his sins 
forgiven. While confessing the man stole 
the priest's watch, and holding it up before 
him, said, "Here is a watch which I have 
stolen, and I will give it to you." His rev- 
erence told the man that he could not ac- 
cept of stolen goods, and ordered him to go 
to the owner of the watch and give it back 
to him ; "I have done so," said the man, "and 
he would not take it from me, and so I offer 



64 THE CLASSICS. 

it to you.'"' "Go back the second time and 
tender the owner his watch ; if he will not 
take it 3'ou may keep it.'' "I have tendered 
it to the owner twice, your reverence." 
"Then," said the priest, "keep it." And the 
thief went his way rejoicing. 



A CHANGE OF BASE. 65 



CHAPTEE VIII. 

A CHANGE OF BASE. 

TV FTEE the prisoners had been held two 
(^ weeks on the battle-field, they were 
notified that they would be transferred to 
Eichmond in a day or two. The news was 
received with great satisfaction; but little 
did we think that the change would be worse 
than jumping out of the frying pan into 
the fire. By this time those who had re- 
ceived flesh wounds were, in most cases, in a 
fair way to recovery. Those who had an 
arm shot away were able to walk about; 
those who had lost a leg were able to hobble 
on crutches. Many of the severely wounded 
had died. 

We looked upon the transfer to Eichmond 
to mean that we were about to be either pa- 
roled or exchanged; or at worst to have an 
opportunity of sending letters through the 



GC) A CHANGE OF BASR. 

lines to our friends at home, whose anguish 
touching onr fate made many a stout heart 
sick. We had heard nothing from home, 
noi- of the army, since the campaign opened. 
How it would gladden the hearts of parents, 
wives and children, brothers and sisters, to 
learn that we were alive; who. uncertain of 
our fate, were like Eachel weeping for her 
children and would not be comforted. 

We were carried in wagons to Savage Sta- 
tion, seven miles from Gaines Mill, thence 
by rail on the Eichmond and York railroad. 
The teams arrived on the fifteenth, but it 
took two days to complete the transfer to 
Savage Station. The road had been built by 
our army, and consisted of a series of fallen 
trees laid skin-tight the whole length of the 
way. The drivers whipped their horses to a 
trot, and the badly wounded suffered ter- 
ribly. I was not able to sit up, and lay full 
length in the bed of the wagon, suffering the 
most cruel agony from the jolting it made. 



A CHANGE OF BASE. 67 

I appealed to the driver to drive slower^ but 
he paid no attention to the appeal, and 
seemed to take fiendish delight in the torture 
he was inflicting. Finding that I could 
not move his stony heart, I shut my teeth 
tight and bore without further complaint 
his heartless cruelty. 

When we reached Savage Station I was 
thoroughly exhausted and lay down to rest. 
Soon a comrade of the same company, who 
had been wounded in the same battle, passed 
by. He expressed great surprise at seeing 
me, as he understood that I had died the 
day after the battle and was reported dead 
in the company. He was wounded in the 
side and had walked to Savage Station with 
the retreating army the night after the bat- 
tle, but was unable to proceed further and 
was taken prisoner. 

Before the Seven Days' Fight began. Sav- 
age Station was the site of the General 
Hospital of McClellan's army. When the 



G8 A CHANGE OF BASE. 

campaign opeued there were 2,500 sick and 
wounded in this hospital, most of whom, 
together with the medical stores, fell into 
the hands of the enemy. Two days after 
the battle of Gaines Mill another battle was 
fought here, in which our men, although 
severely pressed by tlic Eebels, broke their 
line by a bayonet charge. McClellan's ob- 
jective was the James river, and he ordered 
his victorious troops to continue the retreat. 
Most of the prisoners had been forwarded 
to the tobacco warehouses in Richmond, or 
to Belle Isle on the James River, near Rich- 
mond, before the contingent arrived from 
Gaines Mill. 

(Savage Station being on the railroad, the 
Richmond papers found their way among 
the prisoners. The account of the cam- 
paign which they contained was a monstrous 
caricature. Our army had been all but an- 
nihilated in the series of battles which had 
been fought during tlie six days' retreat to 



A CHANGE OF BASE. 69 

the James Eiver, and was cowering under 
cover of the gunboats; the South had prac- 
tically conquered their independence. The 
doughty editorial warriors of the Sanctum 
Sanctorum were terrible fighters. 

There being no train to convey us to Eich- 
mond that day, I was only too glad to pass 
the night at the Station ; for I was tired, sore 
and sick from the terrible jolting of the 
wagon over the corduroy road. Here I was 
furnished with a shirt and a pair of shoes, 
and I bought a pair of army pants with the 
last five dollar bill that I possessed. After a 
supper of hard tack and cofPee, I dressed my 
wound and lay down on a cot, under cover 
of a tent, and slept the sleep of innocent 
childhood. The next morning I felt all 
right, the soreness caused by the rough and 
tumble ride having left me. 

About three o'clock in the afternoon the 
train which was to convey our contingent 
of prisoners to the Rebel capital came steam- 



70 A CHANGE OF BASE. 

ing into the station. It eonsLsted of a num- 
ber ot" box cars and one regular passenger 
coach; the box cars being for the privates 
and non-commissioned otticers; the coach for 
tlie accommodation of tlie oiBcers. There 
were ])oints en route to Hiclimond where 
pickets were stationed, wlio clieered in 
triumpli at our expense; perhaps they were 
liome guards; for soktiers who have faced 
each other in battle seldom exult over a 
wounded foe. 

We were probably two hours in reaching 
the llebel capital. As we filed out of the 
depot and formed in line of march, the side- 
walks were filled with people of both sexes, 
and all ages, to see the Yankee prisoners. 
We were a heterogenous mass of humanity. 
All were dirt)' ; many were in rags, some had 
lost a leg. others an arm, many had wounded 
arms in a sling, others their heads tied up; 
all were thin and emaciated from exposure 
and lack of medical attention and proper 



A CHANGE OF BASE. 71 

food. An important looking citizen on 
horseback, probably the mayor of the city, 
cried out to us: "Boys, charge all this up 
to religious fanaticism.^' 

The Eebel officer gave the command, "For- 
ward, march," and we started along the 
street with slow and solemn step to a to- 
bacco warehouse, which had been assigned 
for our prison quarters. A file of Confeder- 
ate soldiers were placed on each side of the 
entrance of the prison to search the prison- 
ers before they entered the building. All 
found with revolvers and knives were re- 
quired to hand them over to the guards; but 
any one who possessed a watch, or money, 
was allowed to retain it. 

I had the yellow regimental band belt 
around my body; and before reaching the 
entrance to the prison, a citizen offered me 
a dollar and a half in Confederate money for 
it, and I gladly accepted the offer. At this 
early stage of the war, the Eebel money had 



72 A CHANGE OF BASE. 

not greatly depreciated in value, and I 
bought bread with it in the prison at ten 
cents a loaf. 

The prisoners filed up the steps to their 
respective quarters as the guards directed. 
The building had been used as a prison ever 
since the first battle of Bull Eun, July 21, 
1861, and had just been emptied before our 
arrival, the former occupants having been 
transferred to Belle Isle on the James River. 

Having become worn out, sore and feverish 
by the march from the depot to the prison, 
I stretched myself full length on the dirty 
floor, in anything but a pleasing frame of 
mind. The lines over the gates of Hell in 
Dante's Inferno can best express my feel- 
ings: 

"ABANDON HOPE ALL YE WHO 
ENTER HERE." 



NEW QUARTERS. 73 



CHAPTEE IX. 

NEW QUARTERS. 

f^JrHE tobacco warehouse was so crowded 
^■^ with prisoners that there was scarcely 
room to lie down; and we soon discovered 
that it was inhabited by another species of 
animated nature. Next day, for some reason, 
we were removed to another tobacco ware- 
house on the same street. There were eight 
hundred and five prisoners confined in this 
building, which was three stories in height. 
One hundred and sixty-five occupied the 
third floor — the room to which I was 
assigned. 

The room was divided up into im- 
aginary sections for bed rooms; two by six 
feet being alloted to a prisoner. A space two 
feet wide ran along the whole length of the 
building between the rows of prisoners — 
this was a street or passage in which we 



7-i NEW QUARTERS. 

miglit walk to and fro. There were several 
of these streets between the rows of prisoners. 
A wider passageway ran at right angles to 
these parallel passage ways, leading to the 
stairway outside. In the rear of the building 
thei-e was a large water tank which was 
filled with water from the canal, and there 
were several out-houses for the calls of 
nature. 

There was a medical director, several 
nurses and cooks allotted to each room. The 
doctor was allowed to go outside for nec- 
essary medical supplies. He was a whole- 
souled, big-hearted man, cheerful of man- 
ner and kind of speech; and was universally 
liked ])y tlie prisoners. Some of the nurses, 
too, were allowed to go out on business con- 
nected with theii- office; they never failed 
to bring back their canteens filled with clear 
cold water, which they gave to the badly 
wounded and dying soldiers. 

The floor of the room was covered for sev- 



NEW QUARTERS. 75 

eral inches with dried and hardened tobacco 
juice. This was the mattress on which we 
slept, our covering being the black and dirty 
ceiling overhead. 

The scorching mid-summer sun raised the 
temperature of the water in the tank to such 
a degree that it burned our mouths in drink- 
ing it. When it rained hard the water be- 
came as brown as a brick; but we had to 
drink it or go without. During the whole 
time of our confinement in the tobacco 
warehouse many of the prisoners never once 
enjoyed the luxury of a drink of pure, cold 
water, and none of them got more than two 
or three mouthfuls. 

Our rations were half a loaf a day — a half 
ration. I was more fortunate than most of 
my associates, however, as I bought with the 
Confederate money, received for my belt, an 
occasional loaf of bread from the venders, 
who were permitted to sell to us. There 
was very little money among the prisoners. 



76 NEW QUARTERS. 

as they had not been paid for two months 
before the fighting began. We sometimes 
were treated to half a bowlful of "beef tea," 
which the l)oys with porfeel truth called 
dish watei'. Once I bought a piece of fresh 
meat, and laid half of it aside for my friend 
Saycrs. He was down in the middle room at 
the time visiting a comrade. When he re- 
turned the meat was fly-blown and he could 
not eat it. 

Comrade Lowry was located on the floor 
below, and he did not call for a day or two. 
When he came he said in a serio-comic voice, 
"Well, Roy, what do you think of our new 
hotel quarters as compared to the green 
fields of Gaines Mill?" Said I, "Lowry, do 
you remember Satan's soliloquy, after he 
recovered from his stupor on being hurled 
down into the bottomless pit? 

"Farewell, happy fields; hail, horrors; hall 
Infernal world; and thou profoundest Hell 
Receive thy new possessor, one who brings 



NEW QUAETER8. 77 

A mind not to be changed by place or time; 
The mind in its own place and in itself 
Can make a heaven of hell and a hell of 
heaven." 

I wish I had only half of Satan's courage, 
as Milton portrays it in "Paradise Lost." 
"All right," replied Lowry, "but you must 
remember that Satan was never confined in 
a tobacco warehouse, in the Capital of the 
Southern Confederacy; otherwise he would 
not have been so courageous and self-con- 
tained. Well, we must make the best of it 
we can for, as Shakespeare says: 

"Things are never at the worst 
So long as we can say: 'This is the wors't" 

And he left me promising to "call again." 
Comrade Campbell, of my own company, 
was in the third or upper room. He often 
came over to see me and to talk about old 
times in the regiment, and our quiet and 
happy homes far away. Sayers was also on 
the same floor, and we were much together. 
Campbell had a bad wound; but he was a 



78 NEW QUARTERS. 

strongly-built youug iiiaii, in the first flush 
of full-grown manhood, and his courage 
was like his frame. 

'J'he accommodations in the back yard 
providing for the calls of nature were insuf- 
ficient for the purpose. Occasionally as 
many as twenty soldiers would l)e standing 
in single file awaiting their turn, and when 
the promptings of nature could no longer 
l)e controlled the poor fellows violated the 
proprieties. Prisoners too sick or badly 
wounded to crawl to the sinks were fre- 
(juently found wallowing in their own filth. 
In later years, Mdien peace had spread her 
white wings over the land, Comrade Sayers 
wrote me : "I distinctly I'emember the scenes 
you describe, particularly the letter to the 
Richmond paper about the starvation of our 
prisoners; but I do not remember Lowry. 
He must have been an intimate friend of 
yours belonging to the same regiment. But 
the fact is, all the Pennsvlvania Reserves 



NEW QUARTERS. 79 

were soul and l)ody brothers. They were 
blood relations in one sense at least — they 
bled, suffered and died together on many a 
hard fought battle field. 

"Stricken down in the early part of the 
war, I saw little of the hard fighting, com- 
pared to many; but I saw enough of rebel 
prison life to appreciate the horrors of those 
infernal hells, in which studied neglect, for 
the sole purpose of producing disease and 
death were daily practiced. Who will ever 
forget those scenes of wounded men wallow- 
ing helpless in their own filth, covered with 
vermin, and starved into disease, idiocy and 
death. 

When I think of those days, I wonder 
how any soldier can be a Democrat, especially 
any one who ever experienced the horrors 
of those infernal dens. If wounds and pri- 
vations in rebel prisons will not knock the 
Democracy out of a man I wonder where the 
honor and brains of such a man can dwell." 



so HEAETRENDIXG SCENES. 



CHAPTER X. 

HEARTKENDING SCENES. 

'^i HAD two comrades^ Ijoth terribly 
<^ wounded, who occupied bedroom space 
witli me on the tobacco stained floor. I oc- 
cupied the middle of the bed. Both com- 
rades, in addition to their wounds, were 
burning wdth fever. The second day they 
sank rapidly, and in the afternoon they 
died. 

I turned my head to watch them die. They 
expired within five minutes of each other. 
Neither of them ever spoke. As soon as the 
doctoi'*s attention was called to their death, 
he had the remains removed, and the bed- 
room space made vacant was filled by other 
prisoners. 

In that closely packed room, where nearly 
two hundred men were quartered, most of 
them wounded, the stench which filled the 



HEARTEENDING SCENES. 81 

room was suffocating. My lungs soon be- 
came so clogged up that I could not breathe 
without suffering, and I had a pain in my 
breast all the time I was in the tobacco ware- 
house. A number of the unwounded would 
sit on the window sills of the prison, with 
their legs hanging outward, and nearly filled 
the space through which the fresh air of 
Heaven might otherwise have entered the 
building. This was against the rules, and 
the rebel guards in the street would order 
them back into the room; they, however, 
would disregard them and return again. In 
no case which came under my observation 
did the guards ever raise their pieces on 
them. It was frequently published in the 
Northern papers that the Eebel guards had 
shot some of the prisoners at the windows; 
but the statement was unwarranted and un- 
true. The guards were, on the contrary, ex- 
ceedingly forbearing when their orders were 
disregarded. 



82 HEARTRENDING SCENES. 

I was able in a day or two to go down the 
stairway to the water tank in the back yard 
to dress my wound. On one of these occa- 
sions I met the tall New Yorker at the tank 
dressing his wounded knee. He was not 
looking well, and was feverish. "0, Roy, 
he said, "we will never get out of this lior- 
rible place; I will never see my wife and 
children any more. The settled purpose of 
the Rebel government is to Idll all the pris- 
oners by neglect and starvation. How can 
a government which pretends to be civilized 
have the heart to treat its prisoners as we 
are being treated? 0, if I could only see 
my wife and children again I would not 
mind it so much." I promised to call on 
him, and bade him cheer up ; that we would 
all get home after a while and live and laugh 
at this hereafter. I visited him the fol- 
lowing day and found him stretched full 
length on the floor with a high fever. Sayers 
went down to see him later in the dav, ami 



HEARTRENDING SCENES. 83 

on returning said to^ me : "The New Yorker 
is a very sick man; I believe he is dying, go 
down and talk to him.'' I did so, but he re- 
fused to be comforted. He died next day. 

The death of this comrade filled my heart 
with sorrow; for I had become greatly at- 
tached to him. I blamed myself for not 
taking his home address. His poor wife 
and children would probably never know 
when and where he died. It would have been 
a great consolation to them to have been in- 
formed that his greatest sorrow, as a prisoner 
of war, was that he could not communicate 
with them and send them his love, and to 
know how often and how lovingly he had 
spoken of them. 

There was no chair nor table to rest on; 
no needle nor thread with which to mend our 
clothes, no water, soap or towels in the 
prison. The pale and emaciated condition of 
the prisoners, the daily deaths, sometimes 
amounting to a dozen, and the ever increas- 



84 HEARTRENDING SCENES. 

ing number of sick were enough to rend the 
stoutest heart. We could see from the back 
windows of the prison the Eebel Capitol, 
with the Eebel flag waving from it, and 
curses both loud and deep were freely ex- 
pressed that Jeff Davis and the flag, too, 
might be hurled down 

"To bottomless perdition; there to dwell 
In adamantine chains and penal fire." 

These were not the words used; my pen 
is not able to transcribe them, and if it were, 
they would not look well in print. 

Owing to the severity of my wound I was 
not able to walk, except with suffering, and 
passed most of the wearisome hours stretched 
full length on the floor. An occasional news- 
paper would find its way to the prison, which 
was read with the greatest eagerness. Fre- 
quently, to take my mind off the gloomy 
and depressing situation, I would watch, 
timepiece in hand, our heniipterous com- 



HEAETRENDING SCENES. 85 

rades creeping on the tobacco stained floor — 
watch them "sprawling and sprattling in 
shoals and nations," to borrow emphasis 
from the poetry of Robert Burns. Their 
maneuvers sometimes reminded me of a line 
of skirmishers. 

To keep these comrades from becoming 
too familiar with our poor bodies we shed 
our clothing twice a day, and slew all we 
could find. This gave us relief for the time 
being; but notwithstanding our repeated at- 
tacks they became more numerous and 
formidable every day. The red, inflamed 
spots — and their number was legion — 
with which our bodies were covered, too pal- 
pably demonstrated that if we did not carry 
on a defensive war we would sooner or later 
bite the dust ourselves. It was a war of 
opposing and enduring forces. 

In the course of two or three weeks a 
number of the convalescent prisoners were 
removed to Belle Isle. This gave us more 



86 HEARTRENDING SCENES. 

room in which to walk about the prison, but 
made little if any difference in its sanitary 
condition; the vapid atmosphere, the sick- 
ening odor, the filthy floor with its thousands 
of body lice remained. The hand of death 
also remained. 

To escape from the foul and noxious at- 
mosphere of the tobacco warehouse, I fre- 
quently rested a while in the back yard, after 
dressing my wound. The scorching rays 
of the mid-summer sun were hard to endure, 
but were a relief from the horrible stench 
of the prison. Quite a number of the 
wounded were not thoughtful in this matter, 
and died victims to the polluted atmosphere. 

My wound continued to discharge pus as 
copiously as ever, althougli I was gradually 
gaining in strength. I made at least a half 
dozen trips a day to the cistern in the back 
yard to wash the bandage and dress the 
wound. I had only one rag — a piece of my 
shirt, which I had torn up a day or two 



HBAETEENDING SCEJSTES. 87 

after the battle of Gaines Mill, to cover the 
wound. 

There was an abundance of water at all 
times in the tank, to which we could help 
ourselves to clean our wounds and wash our 
bandages. By turning a faucet we got water 
from the canal to drink, but it required 
a great exercise of courage, even when 
choking, to swallow It by reason of its high 
temperature. We never washed our clothes 
at all ; had we washed them they would have 
been as dirty as ever the first night, after 
sleeping on the filthy, tobacco-stained floor. 

A number of intelligent Southern soldiers, 
who were confined in the military prisons 
of the North during the War of the Eebel- 
lion, have done their best to convince them- 
selves and others that the treatment they re- 
ceived was as bad as that of the Northern 
soldiers confined in Southern prisons. Mili- 
tary prison life is bad enough at best, under 
the most humane of governments, but there 



88 HEARTRENDIN"G SCEISTES. 

is no comparison between the treatment the 
prisoners received in the North and in the 
South. The passions excited by the Civil 
War have now died out, and there remains 
nothing of the old bitterness and hatred. 
The Southern soldiers were utterly brave, 
and it was an honor to meet such men in 
battle; but the military prisons of the South 
were a disgrace to the civilization of the 
nineteenth century. 



POETEY IN PRISON. 89 



CHAPTER XI. 

POETRY IN PRISON — DAY DREAMS. 

/|^ NE day Comrade Lowry came to see me 
^-^ with animation in his gait, and a 
broad vsmile overspreading his face. He held 
a newspaper in his hand. "Roy," said he, 
"this paper contains a poem on Napoleon by 
Lord Byron. Let us memorize it. It is a 
magnificent poem, and contains eleven 
stanzas ; I have just finished reading it. You 
can have the paper for an hour, then I will 
call for it and keep it an hour; we will ex- 
change the paper every hour until we have 
the poem memorized, and see who comes out 
victor." I gladly fell in with the idea, 
mauger the suspicion that I would come out 
of the contest second best. 

I read the poem carefully through, and 
then commenced to commit it to memory, 
stanza by stanza. Lovrry returned at the ex- 



90 POETRY IN PRISON. 

piration of the hour, took the paper, and be- 
gan to memorize the poem in the same man- 
ner. Neither of us reported progress, until 
Lowry returned before I had cjuite completed 
mastering the peom, and said "I have it," 
at the same time handing me the paper to 
hold while he recited it. He had the poem 
memorized word for word, and I acknowl- 
edged defeat. I find, after the lapse of forty- 
two years, that I have forgotten it, with the 
exception of one or two stanzas. The last 
one I still remember and transcribe from 
memory : 
"He who ascends to mountain tops shall find 

The loftiest peaks most wrapt in clouds and 
snow. 
He who surpasses or subdues mankind 

Must look down on the hate of those below. 
Though high above the sun of glory glow, 

And far beneath the earth and ocean spread, 
Round him are icy rocks, and loudly blow 

Contending tempests on his naked head: 
And thus reward the toils that to those 
summits led." 

After the war I came across the same poem 



POETKY IN PRISON, 91 

in Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. The poem is 
complete in itself. Indeed, Childe Harold's 
Pilgrimage is a series of poems strung to- 
gether. Byron's poem on Waterloo, be- 
ginning 

"There was a sound of revelry by night," 
which every schoolboy knows by heart, is an- 
other poem complete in itself, and has no 
connection with the Pilgi'image of Childe 
Harold, but has a good deal to do with the 
pilgrimage of Napoleon Bonaparte to the 
Island of St. Helena. 

The mental exercise of memorizing the 
Apostrophe to Napoleon in the Libby prison 
was a labor of love. I had always been a 
reader of poetry, and would have given all 
the money Uncle Sam owed me at the time 
for three books, namely, Shakespeare, Milton 
and Burns. But no books being accessible, 
I passed away many an otherwise weary 
hour in day dreams, touching the outcome of 
the War of the Eebellion. I would discuss 



92 POETRY IN PRISON. 

the question with myself whether or not the 
Southern people, who are hopelessly in the 
wrong, will succeed in breaking up the 
Union. They are terribly earnest in this war. 
No rebellion of such formidable proportions 
has ever been put down. Will a just God 
hearken to the prayers of a people fighting 
to establish a government, the corner stone 
of which is founded on human slavery? If 
the Rebellion is overthrown will the war- 
ring sections live in peace and harmony, or 
will the South at the first favorable oppor- 
tunity rebel again, as Scotland did under 
her hero. Sir William Wallace, and her hero 
king, Robert Bruce? I thought, however, 
that this reasoning was defective — Scotland 
fought for liberty from a foreign yoke; the 
South is fighting for slavery. 

"Might," it is said, "makes right, and 
Providence is on the side of the heaviest 
battalions." Without the railroads could the 
Rebellion have been put down? I presume 



POETEY IN PRISON. 93 

these and similar questions were racking the 
brains of thousands of our people at the same 
time. Happily the Civil War was settled 
right, never to be renewed. 

On the morning of July 21st there was 
unusual activity manifested in the streets of 
Richmond. Small boys began bursting fire- 
crackers and the Rebel tlag was displayed 
from the business houses and private resi- 
dences, and soon "music arose with its 
voluptuous swell." For some time we could 
not comprehend the meaning of this com- 
motion and feared that the Confederate 
army had won a great victory over our 
troops ; or that England and France had rec- 
ognized the Southern Confederacy. We soon 
learned, however, that the people of Rich- 
mond were celebrating the anniversary of 
the Battle of Bull Run. How little did our 
Confederate friends think that in less than 
three years their government would be a 
thing of the past, their president a fugitive, 
and their flag trailing in the dust. 



94 DISCUSSING THE CAJIPAIGX. 



CHAPTER XII. 

DISCUSSING THE CAMPAIGN. 

^YfTHE volunteers of the United States Army 
are altogether different men in point 
of intelligence from the soldiers of European 
countries. The rank and file of the armies 
of Europe are mainly made up from the low- 
est and most ignorant of the population. The 
soldier there is taught to obey orders, not to 
think. Even in the British Army it is a rare 
thing for a private to rise above the grade of 
a noncommissioned officer; and it is contrary 
to the army regulations for a general officer 
to mention in his report the name of any pri- 
vate who may have done something merito- 
rious in battle. 

During our Civil War, in fact, in all our 
wars, the privates among the volunteers were 
in many cases better educated and more in- 
telligent than the officers who commanded 



DISCUSSING THE CAMPAIGN. 95 

them. The last two generals who commanded 
the armies of the United States, as well as 
the present general, were privates in the War 
of the Rebellion. Hence it has been well said 
that "The bayonet of the American private 
soldier thinks." During a campaign the pri- 
vate discusses the situation intelligently, and 
after a battle criticises the causes of success 
or failure with as much intelligence as the 
general commanding. 

During the sixteen days that the prison- 
ers lay on the battle ground of Gaines Mill, 
as well as during their prison life in Rich- 
mond, they discussed the campaign daily. 
Comrade Lowry, who possessed the elements 
of a general, and would have risen to high 
command had his life been spared, frequently 
discussed the errors and defects of McClel- 
lan's generalship. I do not know whether 
he ever read the battle of Austerlitz, but 
he always insisted that McClellan should 
have attacked Lee when the rebel army was 



9G DISCUSSING THE CAMPAIGN. 

divided, with a river between the two wings. 
Had Grant, or Sherman, or Sheridan been 
in command of the Army of the Potomac 
in the Seven Days' Fight, the campaign 
would liave had a different result. 

The difference in the character of the first 
and last commander of the Army of the Po- 
tomac was well illustrated at the beginning 
of the war. AVhen President Lincoln issued 
his first general order, as commander-in-chief 
of the army, for a forward movement of all 
the armies, on the twenty-second of February, 
McC'lellan did not move before the tenth of 
March — he had to delay ol^eying the Presi- 
dent's order until the ground would dry. 
Grant, who construed the President's order 
to mean that he need not wait until the 
twenty-second of February, was off within 
twenty-four hours after receiving the order, 
and by the twenty-second of February had 
fought a great battle, and taken more prison- 



DISCUSSING THE CAMPAIGN. 97 

ers than had ever been captured by any gen- 
eral on the American continent. 

Lee attempted the same maneuver on 
Grant at Spottsylvania which was so success- 
ful against McOlellan on the Chickahominy. 
He massed on Grant's right and struck it a 
terrible blow. Grant and Meade were sitting 
on a log together, when an aide rode forward 
and informed Grant that Lee had massed on 
his right and was driving it by force of su- 
perior numbers. Grant handed the order to 
Meade, who became excited. Soon another 
and another aide rode forward with the same 
report. *'My God, General," exclaimed 
Meade, "we ^Wll have to take the army out 
of here.*' Grant, as cool as "patience on a 
monument," took his hat off his head, the 
cigar out of his mouth, and said to himself : 
"Ah, Mr. Eobert Lee, yoii are driving my 
right flank; I will see what I can do with 
your right flank," and wrote an order for a 
■\dgorous attack on Lee's right. Meade was 



98 DISCUSSING THE CAMPAIGX. 

ready to retreat; Grant had not beguii to 
fight. 

2sotwithstanding the failure of tlie cam- 
paign, McClellan was still the idol of the 
Army of the Potomac. lu the tobacco ware- 
house the prisoners in ninety-nine cases in 
a hundred stood by him, and would allow 
no adverse criticism of liis generalship. On 
one occasion, when Lowry and I were chat- 
ting together, a prisoner, an intelligent man, 
began discussing the campaign. He insisted 
that we had not been defeated ; that the gen- 
eral had only changed his ])ase, his position 
on the Chickahominy having become unten- 
able. I said to him, "I wish I could think 
90 ; a general never fights a battle without 
an object in view; to do so is to sacrifice his 
men. It would have been much easier for 
the general to change his base before 
Stonewall Jackson's reinforcements arrived; 
then he could have saved his anny stores, his 
artillery and his men. The facts are that 



DISCUSSIXG THE CAMPAIGN". 99 

McClellan was outgeneraled. We would 
have taken Eiclimond had the army been 
properly handled. We are better soldiers 
than the Eebels ; were better clad ; better fed ; 
better drilled; more intelligent; it isn't our 
fault that Eichmond was not taken." A 
hospital nurse, who had a light cane in his 
hand, walked over to me and raised it to 
strike me, declaring that he would allow no 
man to criticize General McClellan's general- 
ship. Lowry asked me to let the matter 
drop, and turning to the hospital nurse said 
to him: "Comrade, you are wasting your 
valor in the wrong place; you should have 
used it in battle, where it was needed ; but I 
very much doubt if you possess any of the 
article, or you would not raise your arm to 
strike a wounded man." The nurse, who 
had never fired a shot in battle, collapsed. 

Before the campaign opened I had lost 
faith in McClellan as an able general. He 
could do everything well but fight. His ad- 



100 DISCUSSING THE CAMPAIGN. 

mirers called him "the Young Napoleon." 
There never was a more unfortunate compar- 
ison. When Napoleon took command of the 
Army of Italy it had been reduced to the low- 
est condition by sujSering and poverty. Be- 
fore starting out on the campaign Napoleon 
said to his friends : "In three weeks you will 
see me back in Paris or hear from me in 
Milan." In fifteen days he had won six bat- 
tles, captured fifteen thousand prisoners, 
taken fifty-five pieces of artillery, and con- 
quered the richest part of Piedmont. When 
]\[cClellan took command of the Army of the 
Potomac he said to his soldiers : "You have 
seen your last defeat; you have made your 
last retreat." He promised to make rapid 
marches and bring the war to a speedy close. 
He repeatedly promised to take Eichmond, 
but was never ready to fight when the time 
came to redeem his promise. Instead of at- 
tacking Lee he waited until Lee attacked him 



DISCUSSING THE CAMPAIGN. 101 

and then fled for protection under cover of 
the gunboats on the James River. 

In his history of his campaigns, entitled 
"McClellan's Own Story/' he gives as his 
main reason for not assuming the offensive 
on the south side of the Chickahominy, after 
Lee had detached to crush Fitz John Porter, 
that he had on hand but a limited amount 
of rations, and as it would have taken some 
time to carry the strong works in his front 
his men would have been short of food. 

He gives the losses of the two armies in 

the series of battles known as the "Seven 

Days' Fight" as follows : 

CONFEDERATES 

Killed 2,822 

Wounded 13,703 

Missing 3,224 



Total 15,849 

ARMY OF THE POTOMAC 

Killed 1,745 

Wounded 8,062 

Missing 6,042 

Total 15,849 



102 DISCUSSING THE CAMPAIGN. 

The above figures show that our army, in 
the series of battles, killed and wounded more 
Confederates than our combined losses of 
killed, wounded and missing; and McClel- 
lan reports that he won every battle except 
Gaines Mill. This only increases the wonder 
that he turned his back upon the enemy after 
defeating him every time, except at Gaines 
Mill. He insists that he was greatly, out- 
numbered. We know now that he had more 
men than Lee. 

Xearly all of the Southern generals who 
fought against McClellan have said that they 
feared him more than any other general who 
commanded the Army of the Potomac, and 
that he struck them harder blows. This is 
probably correct; but it was due to the fact 
that the rank and file of the Army of the Po- 
tomac loved McClellan more than they loved 
any other commander, not even excepting 
Grant. Had McClellan possessed half of 



DISCUSSING THE CAMPAIGN". 103 

Grant's iron will and willingness to fight he 
would have finished up the war like a clap 
of thunder. Grant did not know how to re- 
treat; McClellan did not know how to fight. 
There was always a lion in his path. 



104 UNION SENTIMENT. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

THE UNION SENTIMENT OF THE SOUTH. 

7k LTHOUGH to outward appearances the 
^ Soutli was a unit to destroy the Union, 
there was as a matter of fact quite a Union 
sentiment even in the capital of the Confed- 
eracy, which manifested itself as much as it 
dared to in the interest of the prisoners. A 
lithe, little woman, evidently, judging from 
the plainness of her di'ess, the wdfe of a poor 
man, passed the prison daily and threw in a 
loaf of bread through a window of the 
lower story. She belonged to the common 
people, which LinooLti said "God loved, or he 
would not have made so many of them." A 
single loaf of bread would not add much to 
the scant bill of fare of 800 prisoners; but 
the spirit which inspired the act did the 
prisoners more good than a thousand loaves 



UNION SENTIMENT. 105 

would have done by order of the Southern 
Confederacy. 

The common people of the South — the 
poor whites, as the slave-holding element 
called them, — were loyal at heart until the 
mad passions of the politicians precipitated 
the attack on Fort Sumter. I was a citizen 
of Arkansas, when the war broke out, and 
was clerk of the election of the precinct in 
which I resided when the convention was 
elected to take the state out of the Union. 
There were only four slave owners in the 
precinct, all of whom voted for the delegate 
who favored secession. There were forty- 
four votes cast altogether, and forty of them 
were cast for the Union candidate. 

Of the sixty-five delegates elected to the 
state convention, thirty-five were for the 
Union and thirty for secession. The con- 
vention met at Little Eock, the state capital, 
and immediately adjourned to meet again 
the following August. After the bombard- 



106 UNION SENTIMENT, 

meiit of Fort Sumter it re-convened and 
passed the Ordinance of Secession with a 
whirl. 

The people among whom I lived were 
farmers, who owned the land they tilled, and 
were Southerners from Kentuek}^, Missouri, 
Tennessee and Alahama. They were too poor 
to own slaves and hated the system as 
heartily as either Horace Greely or Wendell 
Phillips. 1 hoarded with James Crockett, a 
distant relative of the celebrated backwoods- 
man of Tennessee, and he possessed many of 
the traits of character of his uncle, the ec- 
centric congressman, and was a bold out- 
spoken Union man. AMien the war broke out 
he declined to enlist, declaring that he would 
never slioulder a musket to aid in breaking 
up the government of his fathers, and in- 
sisted that no state convention, or any other 
state authority, had power to pass an ordi- 
nance of secession. When he was drafted he 
declined to report for duty, and told the 



UNION SENTIMENT. 107 

provost guard who came to arrest him that 
they could shoot him or hang him, but he 
would never lift a gun against his own 
countrymen. 

One of the lawyers of Fort Smith was also 
a bold, outspoken Union man, and said in a 
public speech, before the war opened, "that 
if any state dared to organize a rebellion 
against the authority of the United States 
it was the duty of the general government 
to use coercion to compel obedience to its 
authority." The speech raised a storm of 
indignation about the lawyer's ears and he 
was compelled to make a recantation to save 
his life; but, like Galileo, he was still in fa- 
vor of coercion to compel obedience to the 
national authority, and he lived to put his 
principles into practice. After the Union 
troops captured Fort Smith he raised a regi- 
ment of loyal Arkansasians and fought for 
the Union. He was elected governor of the 
state in 1884. Being in Arkansas the same 



108 UXIOX SENTIMENT. 

year, I called upon him in Fort Smith; he 
remembered me very well. After meeting 
the Governor I inquired of an old acquaint- 
ance of anti-bellum days how it came to pass 
that the people of Arkansas had elected a 
Union Colonel Governor. "0, well," replied 
my friend, "he helped to reorganize the state 
after the war, and we forgave him." 



PAEOLED. 109 



CHAPTER XIV. 

PAKOLED. 

^JC VERY day after the two first weeks of 
C^ our confinement in the tobacco ware- 
house we expected to receive some positive 
information in regard to being paroled. Ru- 
mors were floating through the prison all 
hours of the day that we were to be released 
and sent North, and excitement was up to 
fever heat on the subject. Every time the 
director returned from a visit to the city he 
was besieged for news, and it was always 
encouraging. The most extravagant expres- 
sions of joy were indulged in at the mention 
of these glad tidings. Wounds and sickness 
were forgotten and nothing was thought of 
but the prospect of returning to God's coim- 
try. The change from our former despair 
to our present joy cannot well be described. 
When we received positive information 



110 PAEOLED. 

that the arrangements had been completed 
for our release a feeling of joyous exulta- 
tion lilled ever}' breast in the prison. It was 
the ha})piest moment of our lives. When 
night came ^\■e could not sleep. Early the fol- 
lowing morning the comrades standing at the 
windows saw a long file of prisoners from a 
tobacco warehouse above come marching 
down the street on the way to the railroad 
station. Next morning another long file 
passed, and in the evening we were notified 
that we would be released the following 
morning. I did not sleep a wink that night, 
ami few eyes were closed in the building. 
All were up bright and early next morning, 
happy in the assurance that we were once 
more to breathe the sweet, pure air of 
heaven. 

Some of the prisoners belonging to the 
preceding gangs were obliged to return to 
their prison quarters until the following 
day, there being no room in the cars to con- 



PAROLED, 111 

vey them. Weak and crippled, I was de- 
termined not to get left and spend another 
night in that horrible black hole of Calcutta. 
When the command was given, "Forward, 
march," I put forth all my strength to keep 
from falling behind, and was fortunate 
enough to reach the train before all the cars 
were filled; but I had to suffer afterwards 
for my temerity, as the over-exertion made 
me so feverish and sore that I could not 
walk without pain for two weeks. 

Some good angel must have visited the 
dreaming ear of the railroad officials or Jeff 
Davis, for the train was made up of first- 
class, up-to-date passenger coaches. The 
train was no sooner loaded with its dirty, 
ragged, but supremely happy passengers, 
than it started for City Point, where the 
prisoners were to be formally turned over to 
the Confederate States Officers appointed to 
receive them. In about an hour we reached 
Petersburg, thirty miles siouth of Kichmond, 



113 PAKOLED. 

where a short stop was made. An old 
darky^ who was selling pies, came up to the 
window and I bought one of the pies, giving 
liim in paj-ment the last quarter of the Con- 
federate money I had received for the regi- 
mental band in Richmond. The pie was 
horrible stuff and, after taking a bite, I 
threw it out of the window. 

Petersburg, two years later, became the 
theater of the operations of Grant's and 
Lee's armies. Its fall, after a prolonged and 
gallant defense, was followed by the capture 
of Richmond, the surrender of Lee's anuy 
and the total collapse of the Confederacy. 

Tlie train started up again and in twenty 
minutes reached City Point. As the 
wounded and emaciated soldiers of the 
T^nion beheld the Stars and Stripes floating 
from the masts of the steamboats in the 
river, loud shouts rent the air; and tears 
rolled down the cheeks of men unused to 
weeping. After the cheering subsided the 



PAROLED. 113 

paroled prisoners, with voices like Stentor, 
sang the doxology — and we certainly did 
"Praise God from Whom all Blessings 
Flow." 

After relieving their feelings in this man- 
ner the prisoners were transferred on board 
the steamboat "Commodore/' and were pre- 
sented with new uniforms, consisting of cap, 
shoes, underwear, shirt, blouse, pants and 
socks. We were assisted in undressing and 
given a good bath. I still wore the blouse 
I had on when I was wounded; it had two 
holes in it, one in front, the other in the 
rear, where the ball entered and passed 
through my left side. I did not think of it 
at the time or I would have asked the officer 
in command to allow me to retain it as a 
war relic. All the clothing of the prisoners 
was wrapped up in bundles and flung into 
the river. 

The same evening we were carried to Har- 
rison's landing, and on the way passed the 



114 PAROLED. 

gunl)oat flotilla. The little Monitor, called 
the "Yankee Cheesebox/' from the shape of 
its turret, was an object of special wonder 
and admiration. When the "Commodore" 
reached Hari'ison's landing, where the Army 
of the Potomac was camped, it hove to and 
tied np for the night. 

Among the nurses on the boat there was a 
young and beautiful Quaker girl, whose 
voice was sweet, gentle and low. She always 
said "thee" and "thou" in speaking. She 
was well educated and belonged to one of the 
best families in Philadelphia. The prisoners 
idolized her. Some of the more chivalrous 
declared that it was worth all the suffering 
and privation they had endured in the rebel 
prison to look upon her pretty face, and hear 
her sweet, low and gentle voice. 

Not having slept a wink the preceding 
night, I had promised myself a good night's 
sleep tonight, and stretched myself on 
my cot, which was soft and clean — the 



PAROLED. 115 

sheets being white as the driven snow; but 
hour after hour passed away and I could not 
sleep. Comfortable as was my bed I was 
not comfortable. The luxury of a good bed 
was too great to be enjoyed. At midnight I 
slipped out of bed, stretched my body full 
length on the bare floor of the boat, and in 
a few minutes was sound asleep, and did not 
waken until called for breakfast. 



116 A VISIT FROM THE GENERAL. 



CHAPTER XV. 

A VISIT FROM THE GENERAL. 

91 FTER breakfast the following morning 
(^ all the wounded and sick were ordered 
to bed in their respective cots, with the 
statement that General McClellan was 
coming on board to see his boys. A visit 
from the general of the army to a lot of re- 
turned prisoners of war was an event not 
of conmion occurrence, and in no other 
country would it be regarded as proper. But 
all men are equal in the eye of God and by 
the Constitution of the United States. 

The General came aboard about nine in 
the forenoon, and remained all day convers- 
ing with the prisoners. He shook hands 
with every one, inquired about their wounds 
or sickness, the kind of treatment they re- 
ceived in the rebel prisons, and gave a min- 
ute or two of his time to each. As he ap- 



A VISIT FROM THE GENERAL. 117 

proached my cot one of the boys said to liiin : 
"General, we got into Eichmond ahead of 
you." The General colored to the eyes; the 
soldier meant it as a pleasantry, but the 
stroke was too practical to be enjoyed. He 
took me by the hand as he had done others 
and inquired where I was wounded, lifted 
the cover from the wound, and asked 
if I had suffered much. I answered that "I 
had suffered terribly, but had tried to bear 
up as became a soldier." He inquired what 
regiment I belonged to; I answered, "The 
Tenth Pennsylvania Reserves," and asked 
him how the Reserves behaved in the series 
of battle. "Splendidly," he replied. I 
asked him, "What was your loss in men in 
the campaign?" "About thirteen thousand." 
Said I, "General, has the result of the cam- 
paign discouraged you?" He raised his arm 
above his head, swung it in a circle for em- 
phasis, and exclaimed with great earnestness 



118 A VISIT FROM THE GENERAL. 

of feeling: "We will put this Rebellion 
down as sure as the sun shines in Heaven. '^ 

It was late in the evening when General 
McClellan left the boat. His visit pleased 
the boys greatly; his robust figure, his keen 
eye and broad forehead, his soldierly bear- 
ing, kind manner, and his confidence that 
the Rebellion would be put down, endeared 
him more than ever to the boys, who had 
fought with rare heroism and suffered un- 
told privation in rebel prisons that the na- 
tion might live. Wounded and sick would, 
at his command, have left their cots to fol- 
low him to death or victory. 

General McClellan appreciated the love 
and confidence the prisoners manifested on 
the occasion of his visits to them. In a pri- 
vate letter to his wife, written at nine o'clock 
the same evening of his visit, he says: 
"From nine o'clock this morning until six- 
thirty this evening I have been among the 
sick and wounded. More than a thousand 



A VISIT FROM THE GENERAL. 119 

came from Eichmond last night and were in 
the steamer. I saw every one of the poor 
fellows, talked to them all, heard their sor- 
rows, tried to cheer them up, and feel that 
I have done my duty toward them. If you 
could have seen the poor, brave fellows, some 
at the point of death, brightening up when 
they saw me, and caught me by the hand, 
it would have repaid you for much of our 
common grief and anxiety. It has been the 
most harrowing day I have passed, yet a 
proud one for me; and I trust many a poor 
fellow will sleep more soundly and feel more 
happy tonight for my visit to them. It 
makes them feel that they are not forgotten 
or neglected when their general comes to see 
them and console them. My men love me 
very much." 

The change of fortune which had befal- 
len the prisoners in the past twenty-four 
hours was more like some Oriental tale than 
a reality. Yesterday imprisoned in a foul 



V.'O A VISIT FHOM THE GENERAL. 

and filthy toltaeeo warehouse, breathing an 
atmosphere so eharged with ncpliritie vapor 
that one could not draw a full inspiration; 
our l)odies covered with h)athsonie vermin; 
hair starved; without ])ropi'i' medical attend- 
anre to dress the wounded or minister to 
the sick. Today breathing the sweet, fresh 
air; divested of our ragged, dirty and 
|)()pulous clothes; our bodies washed clean, 
dressed in new uniforms, sailing down a ma- 
jestic river on a floating palace; sitting 
down to food not surpassed in the Presi- 
dent's (lining room, served to us by beautiful 
and culturt'd ladies, and honored by a visit 
from the general of the army, who was 
proud to take every returned common soldier 
by the hand. 

Cut otl" from all communication in our 
gloomy prison house in Eichmond, none of 
us knew anything about the great changes 
which had recently been made among the 
armv commanders — that General McClellan 



A VISIT FROM THE GENERiVL. 121 

had been superceded as commander-in-chief 
of the army by General Halleck; that the 
department of Virginia had been created and 
placed in command of General Pope, leaving 
General McClellan in command of only such 
troops as were at Harrison's landing. These 
changes in commanders were, as events 
demonstrated, all for the worse. Halleck 
was greatly inferior to McClellan as com- 
mander-in-chief, and Pope was rash and a 
braggart. The second Bull Run was a 
greater disaster than the first. 

McClellan had been ordered to withdraw 
his command to Acquia creek, at the time 
he called on the paroled prisoners, who were 
under the impression that he was getting 
ready for another campaign against Rich- 
mond. He had protested against the order 
to withdraw, and had asked for another 
chance to move against Richmond; but no 
attention had been paid to his protestations 
or entreaties. He had lost the confidence of 



122 A VISIT FROM THE GENERAL. 

tlie administration, but the soldiers under 
his command believed in him and loved him 
as much as ever. As usual, he was not ready 
to move to Acquia creek when ordered, and 
when he did move it was too late to render 
Pope any assistance. 



FOETRESS MONROE. 123 



CHAPTEE XVI. 

FORTRESS MONROE. 

S^HOETLY after General McClellan left 
(^ us the "Commodore" backed out into 
the middle of the river and headed for Fort- 
ress Monroe. All the sick and wounded on 
the boat did sleep sounder that night from 
the visit of General McClellan. The clean, 
soft bed on which I could not sleep the pre- 
vious night was not an obstacle now. Like 
Goldsmith's sailor, "I loved to lie soft," and 
slept like a top. The steamer reached the 
Fortress early in the forenoon. 

As the paroled prisoners stepped off the 
boat reporters representing the large daily 
newspapers took the name, regiment and 
residence of each. In the hurry of 
transcribing many inaccuracies necessar- 
ily crept into the papers. My name 
was printed "A. Eay, 16th Eegiment, 



124 FORTRESS MONROE. 

Pa. Reserves, Residence Frostburg, Mis- 
souri." A younger brother translated this 
to mean "A. Roy, 10th Pa. Reserves, Frost- 
burg, Md." But mother found no comfort 
in the translation. She knew I was dead, 
because shortly after I was wounded a small 
piece of plaster tell from the ceiling on her 
head. This, she insisted, was a warning to 
her that I had died that moment. She was 
of Highland descent and was quite super- 
stitious. 

The severely wounded were assigned to 
quarters in the fort, which had been convert- 
ed into a hospital. The convalescents were 
forwarded to Camp Parole, near Annapolis, 
Maryland, or to the General Hospital in the 
Xaval Academy, according to their condi- 
tion. 

I was left in the hospital at Fortress Mon- 
roe, and was still weak and feverish from 
the effects of the walk from the prison to the 



FORTRESS MONROE. 125 

depot in Eichmond. Comrade Lowry also 
remained at the fortress for a week or two. 
From the day of the battle of Gaines Mill 
to the present time I had not been able to 
get a letter sent through the lines. I had 
learned that some of the comrades of the 
company had written mother that I had been 
mortally wounded and left in the hands of 
the enemy^ and I often thought of the sor- 
row which these letters would cause her. I 
procured pen and paper and wrote a long 
letter to her, informing her of my return 
to God's country, after being made prisoner 
at the battle of Gaines Mill, that I had been 
badly wounded in the battle and was re- 
ported in the regiment to have died from the 
effects of my wound; but, while severely 
wounded, I had pulled through all right and 
hoped soon to be able to get a furlough and 
get home to see her. In the course of a 
week I received her reply to the letter, in 
which she told me that after receiving my 



126 FORTRESS MONROE. 

comrades' letters, stating that I had been 
mortally wounded, she had mourned me as 
dead. She liad been wearing mourning and 
was as much surprised at the receipt of my 
letter as if 1 had risen out of the grave be- 
fore lior eyes. I had inherited a very rugged 
constitution from my ancestors and, besides, 
had never lost hope of recovering, which the 
doctors say is a very strong point in one's 
favor, when death would fain invade this 
earthly tabernacle. 

It took about two weeks to bring me back 
to the same degree of strength that I pos- 
sessed when I made the long walk from the 
prison to the railroad station in Richmond 
I took daily strolls along the bay. The 
l)almy air was so bracing that I soon began 
to hope that in the course of nine or ten 
weeks I would be fully recovered from my 
wound; in this hope I was encouraged by 
the surgeon of the hospital, who was not 
aware that there were dead bones in the 



FORTRESS MONROE. 127 

wound. The surgeon never probed the 
wound all the time that I was at the Fort- 
ress. 

Comrade Lowry, to whom I had become 
as strongly attached as if he had been my 
twin brother, was sent to Camp Parole, near 
Annapolis, Maryland, as a convalescent. 
He wrote me a characteristic letter 
from Camp Parole concerning the recent 
changes in army commanders and pre- 
dicted the speedy collapse of General 
Pope, who had dated his first general order 
from "Headquarters in the Saddle." Gen- 
eral Lee, who was a grave and dignified 
man, perpetrated the only joke of his life 
when he read this order, saying that 
it was the first time that a general had his 
headquarters where his hindquarters ought 
to be. 

I greatly enjoyed living at Fortress Mon- 
roe. The clean, soft bed, the substantial, 
well-prepared rations, the pure, clear, cold 



128 FORTKESS MONEOE. 

water, compared with the miserable half 
ration, Jiot and dirty drinking water, the 
filthy tobacco stained floor teeming with 
vermin, the polluted atmosphere, reeking 
with stench, was as pronounced as the upper 
and lower regions described in the l^ook of 
God. 

Every care and attention were given the 
thin and emaciated soldiers, and all im- 
pro\ed rapidly. Although I was gradually 
gaining in strength, the wound continued 
to discharge the same amount of matter. I 
could not miderstand the reason, and fre- 
quently consulted the doctor about it, who 
invariably told me to have patience and I 
would soon be well. 

I remained in Fortress Monroe for three 
or four weeks, then becoming impatient that 
the wound did not heal faster than it did, 
suggested to the surgeon in charge to trans- 
fer me to Camp Parole, which he readily 
agreed to do. It was much nearer to my 



rOKTEESS MONEOE. 129 

mother's home, and I thought that the 
chance of getting a furlough to visit her, or 
at least to get a transfer to the General 
Hospital, at Clarysville, Maryland, two 
miles from her home, might be brought 
about at Annapolis in case the wound did 
not heal as soon as I hoped it would. 

I duly received the transfer and was con- 
veyed to Annapolis, the quaint old capital 
of Maryland, thence to Camp Parole. I im- 
mediately hunted up my friend Lowry, and 
spent the night with him in his tent. The 
paroled prisoners were living in tents like 
troops in the field. Those who were too weak 
from sickness or wounds were sent to the 
General Hospital in the navy yard. There 
were several thousand paroled troops in 
camp, some few of them being of the com- 
pany to which I belonged, who had been 
captured in the later battles of the 
Peninsula. 

Fearing that the hard fare incident to 



130 FORTRESS ]\rOXROE. 

lii'e in the tented Held would l)c more than 
1 could stand, Comrade Lowry advised me 
not to think of remaining at Camp Parole; 
but to report to the examining surgeon and 
get into the (ieneral Hospital in the Naval 
Academy. Accordingly, the next morning 
1 washed my wound cai'cfully and clean, put 
a clean bandage about my Ijody and re})orted 
to tlie surgeon Tor examination. He was a 
Scotchman, dressed in the Highland trous- 
ers, worn by the Seventy-Xinth New York 
Highlanders; and it did not take long to 
discover that he possessed his full share of 
llighhuid ])ri(le. After examining my 
wound, he tohl me to go to Camp Parole. 
'"Doctor,"' said I, "Do you not think that I 
should l)e sent to the Xavv Yard Hospital?"' 
"0, no," he replied, "that wound is almost 
well: report at Camp Parole." 

Returning to the camp, I hunted up the 
nu^nbers of my company, and passed the 
balance of the dav with them. Thev were 



FORTRESS MONROE. 131 

agreeably surprised to see me, as they 
thought I was dead. The following morn- 
ing I did not dress my wound, and the 
bandage was covered with pus. In this con- 
dition I again reported to the surgeon, who, 
after unwrapping the bandage, which was 
reeking with matter, asked, "What are you 
doing here? You should be in the Navy 
Yard." "Doctor," said I, "you examined 
my wound yesterday and sent me to Camp 
Parole." "I did no such thing," he an- 
swered testily, and immediately wrote out an 
order for my admittance to the General Hos- 
pital, in the Navy Yard. 

The Seventy-Ninth New York Highland- 
ers, to which the surgeon belonged, was 
largely composed of men of Scottish birth 
or descent. The first colonel of the regi- 
ment was John Cameron, a brother of the 
Secretary of War. The regiment came to 
Washington, dressed in full Highland cos- 
tume; it soon discarded the kilt, and wore 



133 FORTRESS MONROE. 

plaid pants and coat. Colonel Cameron was 
killed at the first battle of Bull Run, fighting 
gallantly at the head of his regiment, "as 
high and wild the Cameron's pibroch rose, 
the war-note of Lochiel." 

The Seventy-Ninth Highlanders were 
later sent to South Carolina, and occupied 
a fort, two or tliree hundred yards in front 
of which there ran a ravine. Soon after- 
ward a Union scout reported to the colonel 
that a Eebel brigade would attack the fort 
during the night. The regiment drove 
stakes in front of the fort, stretched a series 
of lines of wire from one stake to another 
and awaited the foe. The moon was shin- 
ing bright as the Confederates came out 
of the ravine and formed in close column of 
division. They gave the rebel yell and 
charged on the double quick, but never 
reached the fort, falling in promiscuous con- 
fusion over the wires. The Union regiment 
opened a murderous fire, the rebels sprang 



FORTRESS MONROE. 133 

to their feet, and made a precipitate retreat. 
It was the tactics of Bruce at the battle of 
Barmockbum repeated. 



134 NAVAL ACADEMY. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

THE NAVAL ACADEMY. 

IK NjSTAPOLIS is an old seaport town, 
(^ but was too near Baltimore to secure 
foreign trade, and is still a mere village. 
Some of the houses were built of brick, im- 
ported from England two hundred and fifty 
years ago. It is the capital of Maryland; 
and the seat of the United States Naval 
Academy, which was l)uilt in 181."), and has 
trained some of the greatest naval command- 
ers of any age or nation. During the War 
of the Rebellion it was converted into the 
more humane business of saving lives. I 
was assigned to a ward on the second story 
of one of the buildings, iVs soon as the 
nurse had washed my wound the surgeon in- 
serted his probe in the rear orifice, exercising 
great care and caution in moving it forward. 
After pushing the probe in for about three 



NAVAL ACADEMY. 135 

inches, he said, "I am now through the 
bone; the ball has passed through the center 
of it, and I find some necrosis bone." I 
knew that the bone had been strvick, but was 
not aware that the ball had passed through it. 
After he had withdrawn his probe he 
wrote two words on a card in Latin, 
meaning gunshot wound, and placed it at 
the head of my bed. "Wliat position 
were you in when you were shot?" he asked. 
"Charging bayonets," I answered. "Well," 
said he, "You were in the act of stepping 
with your left foot, and the weight of your 
body was resting on your right leg, and that 
position saved your life; had you been on 
the other foot your bowels would have been 
cut." "Why, doctor," said I, "The rebel sur- 
geon who dressed the wound, after I was 
made prisoner, told me that I could not live 
three days, and our own surgeon, who dressed 
it the evening of the battle reported the 
wound fatal. How long will it be before 



136 NAVAL ACADEMY. 

1 am fit for duty?" "I cannot tell posi- 
tively," he answered. "The dead bone will 
have to decompose before the wound will 
stop discharging, and it may be several 
months before this will occur." "Can an 
operation not be performed and the dead 
bone removed?" 1 inquired. "No, sir," he 
replied, "an operation would kill you, the 
wound is so near a vital spot." All this was 
a revelation, and greatly dampened my ardor 
of getting well soon. 

When I entered tlie Navy Yard Hospital 
I had not one cent of money; but I needed 
none, for everything necessary for the pleas- 
ure and comfort of the sick and wounded 
was provided by the government, even the 
soldier's letters were sent free. A soldier 
once sent the following rhyme on his en- 
velope : 

Soldier's letter — push it ahead 

Hard tack and no good bread, 

Five months' pay due and ne'er a red. 



NAVAL ACADEMY. 137 

Still one likes to have a little change in 
his pockets, even if he does not find it nec- 
essary to spend it, so I wrote to a friend and 
asked him to send me ten dollars imtil I 
should be paid by Uncle Sam. There was 
five months' pay due me, but a descriptive 
list was necessary from the captain of the 
company before I could draw it. The cap- 
tain had been shot through the body and 
made prisoner in one of the later battles of 
the Seven Days' Fight and I knew not 
where to write him. 

My friend promptly answered my letter 
enclosing ten dollars, but it was some 
little time before I received it. One day I 
was strolling leisurely through the navy yard 
when three soldiers passed me and separated. 
In doing so one of them said, "Good bye, 
Eoy." "Well," said I, "that is my name." 
One of the soldiers turned to me and inquired 
if my first name was Andrew, and on 
being answered in the affirmative, he in- 



I'Sti XAVAL ACADEMY. 

formed me that there was a letter in tlie post 
oltice for me, containing ten dollars. "My 
name/" said he, "is Augustus Koy, and 
flunking that the letter was for me I o])ened 
it, hut finding that it was for another Roy 
I seah'd it again, and you will hnd every- 
thing all right by inquiring at the post 
office." 

Augustus Roy, who liad come to the lios- 
pital before me, belonged to Company F, 
Tenth Massachusetts Volunteers, and I be- 
longed to Company F, Tenth Pennsylvania 
Volunteers, so that there was similarity in 
both names and companies. I called at the 
Post Ollice and got the letter and the ten 
dollars. Later I got a letter addressed to 
A. lioy, with neither company nor regiment 
on the address, and opened it. Tt was writ- 
ten in French, a language which I did not 
understand, so I took it to .Augustus Roy, 
who read it with great facility. He then 
told me that he was the son of a French- 



NAVAL ACADEMY. 139 

man and had learned to read and write the 
language in boyhood, and that the letter was 
from his father. 

A few days after my arrival I called on 
the general surgeon of the hosiptal, and re- 
quested to be transferred to the General Hos- 
pital, at Clarysville, Maryland, which was 
situated within two miles of my mother's 
home. He informed me that he had not the 
authority to grant the transfer; and that I 
would have to write to the Department in 
Washington. I did so, but received no reply. 
I then wrote to some influential friends in 
Frostburg, Maryland, who interested them- 
selves to secure the transfer, but it took 
several months before all the red tape con- 
ditions were complied with and the transfer 
brought about. 

In the meantime I was getting acquainted 
with the sick and wounded comrades in the 
ward. They were nearly all from the Army 
of the Potomac, the volunteers which com- 



140 NAVAL ACADEMY. 

prised McClellan's army having been largely 
drawn from Pennsylvania and the states 
further East. Quite a number were from 
the New England states, and were shrewd 
and intelligent fellows. There was a wiry 
little Yankee from the state of Connecticut, 
in the ward, who was a man after my own 
heart. He was intensely patriotic and had 
been a reader of books. His home was in 
Litchfield, a town named in honor of the cel- 
ebrated Dr. Johnson. The inhabitants of 
Litchfield were proud of the name and were 
people of unusual intelligence. The little 
Yankee, whose name I have forgotten, and 
I became great friends. We had read the 
same books and were mainly in accord as to 
the great poets which Great Britain and the 
United States had produced. 

In discussing the war and its results, my 
friend insisted that the South was more ter- 
ribly in earnest than we were, and that their 
enthusiasm was in a orreat measure making 



NAVAL ACADEMY. l^l 

up for their lack of resources. We needed 
a battle cry that would inspire our troops, 
he insisted. "The Preservation of the 
Union" did not appeal to men's patriotism 
like the word "Subjugation" to the South- 
erner. He could not think of a suitable 
war cry, but he knew that one was needed. 
We passed hours together nearly every day, 
and he often whiled away the heavy hours 
of hospital life telling amusing incidents 
touching the characters of his native town. 
There were provided for the inmates of 
the various wards, books and newspapers, 
dominoes, checkers, and other innocent 
games for recreation and amusement. I was 
fond of playing checkers; there were four or 
five players in the ward of equal skill; our 
contests, which were frequent, were watched 
with keen interest by our associates in the 
ward. One of these was a German, who did 
not understand the game, but took great in- 
terest in the result, looking on patiently 



142 NAV.\X ACADEl^IY. 

during its progress, — and lie always knevr 
who came out victor, l)ecause, said he, "The 
loser always throws down his checkers first." 
One of the inmates of our ward, who was 
a convalescent, possessed a fine taste for the 
beautiful in art and nature. Tie loved to 
saunter in the town and country by himself 
to indulge his taste. One day he was admir- 
ing a fine house, when the head of it came 
out aiul invited him in to dinner. The 
young soldier, wlio was modest and bashful, 
declined. The gentleman, however, would 
take no excuse, and the young soldier iinally 
followed him into the imposing mansion. 
He was introduced to the company present, 
among whom were several elegant ladies. He 
was in mortal dread lest his table manners 
wouhl provoke remark. When he left after 
dinner, the gentlenutn followed him to the 
door, shook hands with him, cordially in- 
vited him to come back again, and bring 
some of his comrades with him. On his re- 
turn to the navv vard lie related the circum- 



NAVAL ACADEMY. 143 

stance to the comrades in the ward, and was 
struck dumb when he was told that he had 
dined \\dth the governor of Maryland. 

Meanwhile my wound continued to run as 
freely as ever; the surgeon probed it every 
few days, exercising the utmost care in in- 
serting the probe in the front orifice. Small 
pieces of bone began to work out at the rear 
opening, which encouraged the surgeon to 
think that nature, which he said was the liest 
surgeon, would soon throw off the dead bone, 
and he informed me that I could not hope 
to recover until all the 1)one had worked out. 

Notwithstanding my emaciated condition, I 
had gained considerable strength since being 
admitted to the navy yard, and although 
Camp Parole was a mile or more from the 
hospital, I was able, by walking slowly and 
taking several rests on the way, to visit the 
camp, and to pass a few hours with the 
comrades of my company. There was one 
man among them who had fallen out of the 
ranks on the firins: line at Gaines Mill and 



144 NAVAL ACADEMY. 

felt the reproaches of his comrades keenly. 
In all the subsequent battles in which the 
regiment participated he nobly redeemed 
himself. The first time I met him at the 
camp he excalimed : "Eoy, I showed the white 
feather at Gaines Mill, but I have fought 
bravely in every battle since." Poor fel- 
low, he was killed in the last battle that the 
regiment took part in, it being the eighteenth 
in which he had fought. 

My friends in Frostburg, Maryland, had 
been in communication for several months 
with the medical authorities touching my 
transfer to the Clarysville Hospital, and after 
many letters written and received succeeded 
in bringing it about. Before the transfer 
reached me the paroled prisoners were ex- 
changed, and early in December all able for 
duty were notified to report to their re- 
spective regiments. I made a trip out to 
Camp Parole to pass a day with them before 
they left. Comrade Lowry, who had often 



NAVAL ACADEMY. 145 

visited me in the navy yard, had long chafed 
at the dull, aimless life of the camp. He re- 
ceived a new lease of life when the news 
came that he was to be sent to the front; 
indeed, all the comrades were inspired with 
the same feeling. 

When Lowry reached the regiment at Fal- 
mouth it was in line of battle, awaiting the 
order to cross the Eappahannock on the 
pontoon bridges for Fredericksburg. The 
captain of his company ordered him to re- 
main in camp until the regiment crossed the 
river, as he had not time to get him a mus- 
ket and accoutrements. Lowry found a 
sick soldier in camp, borrowed his musket 
and belts, and fell into line just as the com- 
pany was about to step on the pontoons. 
He was killed in the battle, shot through 
the heart, and thus died all unknown to 
fame, a man competent to command an army 
corps, and who, had his life been spared, 
would have risen to high command. 



146 CLARYSVILLE. 



CHAPTEE XVIII. 

CLARYSVILLE. 

^YfTOWAED the last of December I received 
^^ transfer and transportation papers to 
the General Hospital at Clarysville, Mary- 
land, and bidding good-bye to all my friends, 
started on my journey. The weather was 
bitter cold, and I had but little money, only 
a few dollars of the ten which I had bor- 
rowed when I entered the navy yard, for I 
had yet received no pay from Uncle Sam. I 
took passage via the Pennsylvania Central 
as the Baltimore and Ohio road had recently 
been torn up by rebel raids. I left the rail- 
road at Hopewell and went the rest of the 
way by stage, stopping all night at Bedford, 
in Pennsylvania. The landlord of the hotel 
had an autograph letter of President 
Buchanan in the office show-case. 

The bed to which I was assimed had but 



OLARYSVILLE. 147 

one thin covering ; the night was cold and my 
body was well drained of blood from long 
suffering. I could not sleep, but lay shiver- 
ing with cold the whole night and thought 
morning would never come. I reached Cum- 
berland, Maryland, ten miles distant, the 
following afternoon, and put up at the home 
of a Union widow, who I had been in- 
formed was kind to soldiers. After break- 
fast the next morning, on inquiring for my 
bill, mine hostess replied, "Nothing." I in- 
sisted on paying her, but she would not take 
the money, saying that she had two sons in 
the Union army and that she never charged 
a soldier for a meal or a night's lodging. 

As the train on the branch road to Clarys- 
ville did not leave until the afternoon I 
walked over to see some acquaintances in the 
second Maryland regiment of the Potomac 
Home Brigade, which was stationed in the 
town. Lieutenant Andrew Spiers, an old 
and valued friend, was very kind; he ten- 



148 CLAllYSVILUE. 

dered me all the money I needed, and felt 
hurt because I did not accept his offer to 
loan me a hundred dollars which he urged 
upon me, without note or interest, and to 
be paid back at such time as I wished to 
return the money. 

Lieutenant Spiers and I had worked in 
the same mine together before the war. He 
was the most intelligent and scholarly miner 
I ever knew. He was a great reader of 
books. AVe used to meet after our day's work 
in the mine and read alond to each other, 
15 minutes alternatively. In this manner 
we read Allison's History of Europe, Ban- 
croft's history of the United States and a 
number of Shakespeare's plays, Burns' 
Poetry, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Para- 
dise Lost, Longfellow and Bryant. 

The company which Lieutenant Spiers be- 
longed to was raised in the Frostburg min- 
ing region, and was composed of miners, with 
all of whom I was personally acquainted. 



CLARYSVILLE. 149 

They were all stalwart Eepublicans^ when it 
took nerve to be a Eepublican in a slave 
state. A number of these same men raised 
the first Eepublican campaign pole ever 
raised south of Mason and Dixon's line, and 
defended it with arms in their hands. The 
flag flew to the breeze until it was blown to 
shreds and patches, was then cut down, the 
pole sawed into blocks about two inches 
square and an inch thick, and distributed 
all over the United States. In the year 1881 
I put a piece in the show case of the relic 
room in the State House in Columbus. 

I took the cars in the afternoon on the 
branch road to Clarysville and on my ar- 
rival immediately reported to Surgeon J. B. 
Lewis in charge of the General Hospital, who 
treated me with great kindness and considera- 
tion, permitting me to go home and report to 
Doctor Townsend once a week. I was driven 
home the same evening and met my mother, 
who could hardly realize that I could be 



150 CI^RTSVILLE. 

alive. The c-iip of jo}' was full to running 
over with both of us.. 

Dr. Townsend, the assistant surgeon at 
the Clarysville hospital, was a practicing 
physician at Eckhart Mines and Vale Sum- 
mit when the war broke out, and had been 
our family physician. He still kept up his 
practice in both of the above named villages, 
and every time he visited Vale Summit called 
to dress my wound. He provided mother 
with a syringe, and directed her to 
use it in the wound twice a day, with milk- 
warm water, saturated with castile soap ; and 
to invariably insert the point of the syringe 
in the rear orifice. The water, when shot 
into the wound, would fly out at the front 
in a stream and land several feet beyond 
the point of exit. The neighbors, when in- 
formed of the fact, hesitated to believe, and 
came in numbers to witness the strange sight. 

Dr. Townsend, in probing the wound, used 
the utmost care and caution in inserting his 



CLARYSVILLE. 151 

instrument. He, like tlie surgeon at the 
Naval Academy Hospital, thought that the 
wound was too near a vital point to be ex- 
amined except with the utmost care, and 
said it was little less than a miracle that the 
bowels were not cut when I was shot. 

The syringing did not help me much, and 
as the winter passed into spring I became 
impatient and insisted on an operation to 
remove the dead bone. He would not for a 
moment entertain the idea, declaring that it 
would kill me ; that the only way to get well 
was to allow nature to work out her remedy 
in her own way; that nature is the best sur- 
geon ; and I would have to bide her time. To 
the question, "How long will nature take 
to rid the wound of the dead bone?" he re- 
plied, "It will be several months." 

A valued friend, Alexander Sloan, a mine 
boss at Vale Summit, had presented me 
shortly after I came home with a fine, stout 



152 CLARYSVILLE. 

cane, wliieh was my constant companion in 
my walks around the village. 

A few months after my wound healed up 
Comrade Joseph Stuart, who had been 
wounded in the same battle with me and 
borne off the battlefield in the same ambu- 
lance, selected me as '^Dest man," and his 
sister as '^est maid," for his wedding. The 
wedding party consisted of twenty-five or 
thirty lads and lassies, and all went to Cum- 
berland, the county seat, where the happy 
couple were made one flesh. 

Immediately after the performance of the 
marriage ceremony the party adjourned to 
the Queen City Hotel for dinner. Two of 
the girls were without escorts, and by an 
oversight were not invited to dinner. As 
soon as my attention was called to the matter 
I immediately rose from the table to look for 
the girls and found them on Baltimore street 
standing by themselves. I apologized for 
the oversight, taking all the blame, and cour- 



CLARYSVILLE. 153 

teously invited them to dinner; one of them 
snappishly thanked me and said "they had 
money enough to purchase their own dinner," 
and stubbornly declined my invitation, and 
I had to return to the Hotel without them. 

Before the passenger coach left Cumber- 
land for the mines I bought a nimiber of 
apples and oranges, and gave each girl of the 
party an orange and an apple, and the two 
girls without escorts two apiece, and again 
apologized for the oversight. They accepted 
the fruit and the apology, and we all whirled 
up the sinuous mountain side as meny as a 
marriage bell, to Vale Summit. 

After supper the wedding party adjourned 
to the village hall where arrangements had 
been made to trip the light fantastic toe. I 
sought out the high-spirited girl and sat 
down beside her. She asked me to tell her 
the story of my prison life. Like Othello I 
ran it through "even to the present moment 
that she bade me tell it :" How I had been 



154 OLAEYSVILLE. 

wounded and "taken prisoner by the insolent 
foe," and had been left for dead on the 
battle-field ; how ray comrades had written 
mother, informing her that I had been mor- 
tally wounded and left on the battle-field ; 
how I had been left with tliousands of other 
prisoners for sixteen days on the battle-field 
without medical attention, my wound filled 
with maggots; with no clothing but my 
blouse; then taken to Eichmond and con- 
fined in a tobacco warehouse \vith over eight 
hundred comrades, all so closely huddled to- 
gether that men died every day by the score ; 
our bodies being covered with pestiferous 
vermin; and half star\-ed. 

My story being finished she gave me for 
my pains a world of thanks, like Desdamona 
in the play. 

"Upon this hint I spoke 
She loved me for the dangers I had passed 
And I loved her that she did pity me." 




Mrs. Andrew Roy at 18 



CLARYSVILLE. 155 

We were married on the 21st of July, 
1864, Just two years from the date of my 
enlistment. 

Lieutenant Spiers would frequently come 
up from Cumberland to pass the day with 
me, and read Shakespeare and Burns and I 
was not all unhappy, although I did at times 
betray marked impatience at the slow sur- 
gical progress of old mother nature. 

After thirteen months of weary waiting 
I received a pay from Uncle Sam. The sol- 
diers were being paid thirteen dollars a 
month, and I received a hundred and fifty- 
six dollars. At this time the greenbacks had 
reached the lowest point in depreciation, a 
dollar in greenbacks being worth thirty-three 
cents in gold, so that as a matter of fact I 
received but fifty-two dollars instead of a 
hundred and fifty-six. The capitalists who 
loaned the government money to carry on 
the war were paid principal and interest in 
gold or its equivalent; in other words, they. 



156 CLARYSVILLE. 

were paid a hundred cents on the dollar, while 
tlie poor soldier was paid but thirty-three 
cents on the dollar. This always looked to 
me to be grossly unfair on the part of the 
government. The man who bared his breast 
that the government might live was entitled 
to the same pay as the man who loaned the 
government money — the same pay and no 
more. The government, however, has made 
amends for its treatment of her gallant sol- 
diers in the bounties and liberal pensions 
which she has given tliem since the close of 
the war. 

Maryland was a slave state before the war, 
and many of her citizens were rebels at 
heart; Yale Summit had its quota of these 
pestiferous copperheads. One day a member 
of the second Maryland Potomac Home 
Brigade came into mother's house with a 
musket in his hand, and anger on his face, 
and asked me to let him have a cap; "I am 
after a copperhead who is hurrahing for Jeff 



CLARYSVILLE. 157 

Davis. When my wife saw me loading my 
musket she liid the caps." I took hold of his 
gun to see that the powder was up in the 
tube, put on a cap and handed it back. 
There were a dozen or more copperheads 
standing together up the street. The soldier 
went toward them; one of the crowd took 
to his heels and sought safety in an adjoin- 
ing store, and locked the door. The soldier 
burst the door open with the butt of his 
musket; but it was too late; the bird had 
flown, having found egress through a back 
window, and taken to the woods. The cir- 
cumstances were, however, reported to the 
provost marshal of Cumberland who sent a 
file of soldiers to arrest the copperhead. He 
was thrown into the military prison of the 
department and given ample time to reflect 
on the tyranny of the Lincoln government. 
In the early part of the summer of 1863, 
finding that I was not improving any I con- 
sulted Dr. Lewis, the surgeon in charge of 



158 CLARYSVILLE. 

the Clarysville Hospital, in regard to an 
operation to remove the dead bone from my 
wound, stating that if there was one chance 
in a hundred of surviving the operation I 
was willing to take that chance. He an- 
swered that there was not one chance in a 
hundred; that an operation would kill me 
beyond a doubt; and advised me to go back 
home, and have patience; that nature in 
its own good time would throw off the ne- 
crosis bone, and I would get well, "How 
long will it be doctor before nature will do 
this work?"' I inquired. "It will not be 
many months longer," he answered in about 
the same words as Dr. Townsend, the assist- 
ant surgeon wliom I had previously con- 
sulted. 



SURGICAL OPERATIONS. 159 



CHAPTEE XLX. 

SURGICAL OPERATIONS. 

/jf\ NE of the doctors in Frostburg, named 
^-^ James Porter, who, when I was a boy, 
was our family physician, stopped in to see 
me nearly every time professional business 
called him to the village of Vale Summit. 
He stood high in the profession; was a man 
of a very high sense of honor, and had a 
heart of the finest water. He was the best 
representative of the "Doctor of the Old 
School" of Ian McLaren's story of "Beside 
the Bonnie Briar Bush," that I ever knew. 
He loved his profession and answered every 
call, without considering the chances of being 
paid. I asked his opinion of the chances of 
recovery, in case an operation was per- 
formed on my wound "I do not know," he 
frankly replied, "and there is not a surgeon 
around these mountains who does, but none 



lOU ■ SURGICAL OPEKATIONS. 

of them will confess the fact; I see you are 
getting very impatient, and if you wish I 
will give you a letter to Dr. Smith of Balti- 
more; he is the best surgeon in the United 
States. If an operation can be performed 
with safety he will do it; if it cannot, he will 
tell you, and put your mind at ease." 

Armed with Doctor Porter's letter I went 
to Cumberland to consult Colonel Porter of 
the Second Maryland with whom I was well 
acquainted, in regard to transportation to 
Baltimore. lie was a nephew of Dr. James 
Porter, and was himself a physician and sur- 
geon by profession. He and the surgeon of 
the regiment examined the wound carefully; 
they had the skeleton of a man in the sur- 
geon's closet, hung together with wires, 
which they brought out and studied. Fin- 
ally the surgeon said to me : "You may as 
well return home; neither Dr. Smith of Bal- 
timore, or any other surgeon living can 
operate on that wound without producing 



SUKGICAL OPERATIONS. 161 

fatal results. Colonel Porter rather thought 
otherwise, and intimated that if he were in 
practice he would not fear to undertake it, 
and cut the wound on the outer rear side. 
"Well," I replied, "I am going to Baltimore 
if transportation is furnished." Colonel 
Porter promised to see General Kelly, who 
was expected to be in the city in the evening; 
but did not come, and I stayed over night 
with Lieutenant Spiers. In the morning 
Colonel Porter asked me if I felt strong 
enough to take a prisoner to the Eifrafs in 
Baltimore, who had been sentenced to six 
months imprisonment there for desertion. 
All I would have to do was to carry a loaded 
musket, and see that the prisoner, who would 
be handcuffed, did not get away from me; 
and the colonel promised to send Lieutenant 
Spiers along with me. I, of course, gladly 
accepted the proposition. 

After handing the prisoner over to the 
military authorities in Baltimore, Lieutenant 



162 SURGICAL OPER-iTIOXS. 

Spiers accompanied me to Dr. Smith's office. 
There were a number of patients in the office, 
and I had to wait my turn. I presented 
Dr. Porter's letter to the great surgeon and 
awaited in breathless suspense, until he 
finished readhig it, then said: "Doctor, 
shall 1 show you the wound?"' "Certainly," 
he replied. 

All the surgeons, civil and military, who 
had before probed the wound, inserted the 
instrument with caution, particularly when 
probing in front, because they said it was so 
near a vital point. Dr. Smith rammed his 
probe in front with great boldness and with- 
out the least regard for my feelings; then 
withdrawing it thrust it in the rear opening. 
"There is some necrosis bone in there; I will 
take it out and you will get well," he said. 
He sent for some students, spoke to them 
touching the nature of the wound, and ram- 
med his forceps in the front orifice. He 
pulled out a piece of bone an inch in length 



SURGICAL OPERATIONS. 163 

and half an inch broad, looked at it a 
moment or two, thrust his forceps in again, 
and brought out a second piece as large as 
the first. The process was very painful. 
He looked in my face for a moment and in 
went the forceps again. After he had ex- 
tracted seven pieces of bone, I said, "Doctor 
for God's sake allow me a few moments rest, 
and a drink of water, for I feel like faint- 
ing." He extracted fourteen pieces alto- 
gether, and although he probed the wound 
carefully could find no more. He then said 
to me : "What made you come to me ? Why 
did not your own surgeons extract these 
bones ? Don't you know that I am a rebel ?" 
"0, doctor," I said, "you are no rebel?" 
"Yes, I am," he replied. 

He charged me ten dollars for the oper- 
ation. One of the students told me that the 
doctor had recently operated on the governor 
of Maryland, for stone in the bladder, and 
that it took more time to perform the oper- 



164 SURGICAL OrERATIONS. 

ation on me than on the governor; but he 
charged him six hundred dollars. Wrap- 
ping up the pieces of bone, Lieutenant Spiers 
drove me to the depot, and I returned home. 

During my absence, Dr. Townsend, the 
assistant surgeon of the Clarysville Hospital, 
got word that I had gone to Baltimore to 
submit to an operation. He called on 
mother to verify the statement, and told her 
that I would be lu'ought home a corpse. As 
a matter of duty I ought to have asked leave 
from the surgeon at Clarysville to make the 
visit to Baltimore, but I knew he would not 
consent; and I had to steal away or not go 
at all. I returned a very lively corpse, and 
was never called to account for what I had 
done. Dr. Townsend's statement had 
frightened mother, who was mourning a 
second time for me as dead. 

Dr. Smith had told me, in answer to my 
inquiry, that the wound would heal up in 
five or six weeks; but although the flow of 



SURGICAL OPERATIONS. 165 

pus soon became greatly diminished it did 
not gradually lessen and cease altogether. At 
the end of ten weeks the wound was dis- 
charging as freely as it did the first week 
or two after the operation, and I made an- 
other trip to Baltimore to consult the profes- 
sor. He had forgotten me in the multitude 
of patients which he had treated, but soon 
recalled the case. He probed the wound, in- 
serted his forceps and brought out a small 
piece of decayed bone, which he looked at 
quisically; tried the forceps again, but could 
find nothing more. He said: "that wound 
MUST heal up," and advised nie to return 
home and have patience. 

Notwithstanding the positive assurance of 
the learned surgeon the wound refused to 
heal. Week after week passed away, until 
the summer gave place to fall and the flow 
of matter had not diminished. But the heart 
of youth is not easily discouraged, and I 
resolved to try another surgeon. 



166 ANOTHER OPERATION. 



CHAPTER XX. 

ANOTHER SURGICAL OPERATION. 

ITHOUT advising with any of my 
friends, I resolved to go to Pittsburg, 
Pennsylvania, and consult some surgeon 
there. I went by way of the Baltimore and 
Ohio railroad to Wheeling, W. Va. The 
train stopped at Wellsville for dinner; the 
proprietor of the Hotel was George Bean, who 
was a member of the same company, and was 
wounded in the same battle with me. He 
had been shot in the knee, and when the 
wound healed it left him with a stiff leg ; and 
being no longer fit for duty, he was dis- 
charged. He declined to charge me for din- 
ner, stating that it was compensation enough 
to meet an old comrade in arms, and wished 
me good success in the proposed operation 
which I was about to undergo. 

\Yhen the train started after dinner, I en- 



ANOTHER OPERATION. 167 

gaged m conversation with the passenger 
who occupied the same seat with me. He 
proved to be a resident of Pittsburg; and in 
answer to my inquiry in regard to the name 
of a first-class surgeon, lie recommended Dr. 
Walters; and informed me that the doctor 
kept a private hospital, in which I could stay 
until I recovered sufficiently from the oper- 
ation to return home. 

Dr. Walters carefully and cautiously 
probed the wound, and said he could find no 
necrosis bone, but there was some foreign 
substance in it, probably a piece of my 
blouse, and that he would have to make an 
incision to get it out. I told him nothing 
of the former operations of Professor Smith 
of Baltimore, and cared little what Doctor 
Walters proposed to do, so that he got out the 
foreign substance which was irritating the 
wound and preventing it from healing up. 

He made an incision at each orifice; then 
thrust his two middle fingers in the wound 



1G8 ANOTHEli OPERATION. 

until they met. The process was terribly 
painful. I was lying on a dissecting table, 
and caught both sides of it with my hands, 
closed my teeth tightly together and resolved 
that no exclamation of pain should escape 
from my lips. After removing his hands he 
inserted his forceps and pulled out, not a 
piece of my blouse, but a good sized piece 
of dead bone. A second insertion of the for- 
ceps was rewarded with another piece. He 
could find no more with his forceps so he 
inserted his fingers again, but found nothing. 
I was suifering so much that I feared that I 
would faint. He gave me a spoonful of 
some liquid, which soon relieved me of the 
terrible pain. 

I have always thought that Doctor Smith, 
of Baltimore, unwittingly buried those bones 
that Dr. Walters removed. He had hold of 
a piece of bone with his forceps, the fifth or 
sixth insertion, which slipped from them as 
he was pulling it out and it was buried in 



ANOTHER OPEEATION. 169 

the left side in the flesh, I think. He tore 
out the bones, one after another, with all the 
force he could command, which was, after 
all, the most merciful way to extract them. 
At the time I called his attention to the fact 
that one of the bones was buried, but he 
would not listen to me. I believe that it 
was a piece of this same bone, which had 
rotted off, which he removed when I went 
back to him the second time. It had rotted 
in two when Dr. Walters extracted it. He 
could not fmd it with his probe, it was too 
far in the flesh to attract his attention. In- 
deed, Dr. Smith was puzzled when he probed 
the wound on my second visit. Men who 
become eminent in any profession, make as 
serious mistakes as those of lesser attain- 
ments. When President Garfield was shot 
the surgeons could not locate the ball, and 
would not listen to the family physician who 
had diagnosed the case right. It is a ques- 
tion whether or not the celebrated surgeons 



170 ANOTHER OPERATION. 

in their futile eiforts to locate the ball did 
not kill the brave, long-suffering President. 
After tlie operation, I stayed several days 
in the hospital being too weak to make the 
journey liome. On the third or fourth day 
a miner who had been fatally injured, in one 
of the neighboring mines, was brought in. 
All the cots in the hospital were filled with 
patients at the time, and Dr. Walters, who 
was a German, and a Jew, I believe, was a 
very choleric man. He lost his temper on 
seeing tlie terribly injured miner laid on the 
floor by the friends who had brought him 
in. Turning to me lie said, "You may go 
home." Miss McDonald, the matron, step- 
ped forward and protested against the order, 
declaring, "That man is not in a condition 
to leave the hospital." The doctor cooled 
down, made me a very humble apology, but 
I declined to stay longer. With a generosity 
wholly unexpected, he came in his private 
carriage and drove me to the depot himself. 



ANOTHER OPERATION. 171 

Having caught cold in the wound after the 
operation I was a very sick man^ and should 
not have left the hospital for two or three 
weeks; but my blood boiled at the unspeak- 
able meanness of the doctor. He had 
charged me one hundred dollars^ and exacted 
payment in advance of performing the oper- 
ation; whereas Dr. Smith had charged but 
ten dollars, and nothing at all for the 
second operation, 

I stayed all night in Wheeling, which was 
then the capital of the new state of West 
Virginia. In the Hotel there were several 
members of the legislature who seemed to be 
well-to-do farmers. I was in the uniform 
of a private, and the stench from my wound 
attracted their attention. I removed the 
bandage and showed them where I had been 
operated on. The surgeons knife had made 
two deep gashes in my side, which being 
aggravated by the cold were dreadful and 
sickening to look at. They assured me that 



172 ANOTllEll OPEllATIOX, 

the government would take care of its brave 
defenders, and they treated me with marked 
consideration until I retired for the night, 
which I spent in great pain. 

Next morning I resumed the homeward 
journey, returning to Piedmont on the Bal- 
timore and Ohio railroad ; thence up George's 
creek to the Borden shaft, two miles from 
home, where being feverish and in pain I 
rested for the night. I was taken home in 
the morning in a very emaciated condition. 
When my mother met me she exclaimed: 
"Oh, he is dying." 

Dr. Smith's two operation-S did not weaken 
me much ; but the incisions of Dr. Walters 
were exceedingly painful and exhausting, 
and were aggi-avated by the cold in the 
wound, which I had contracted on my way 
home. I was compelled to keep my bed for 
two weeks, suffering more than I did when I 
was shot down on the battlefield. 



ANOTHER OPERATION. 173 

Dr. Porter called and gave me a good 
scolding for not consulting him before going 
to Pittsburg, and denounced Dr. Walters 
for butchering me the way he had, and for 
ordering me to return home before I was in 
condition to travel. He insisted that I had 
a right to remain until I had so far recovered 
from the operation, as to be able to travel 
with safety, even though it took two months 
or longer. 

I grew weaker every day; I could not turn 
in bed, and began to despair of recovery. 
My friends who called to see me also began 
to lose hope. All at once, after ten days of 
terrible suffering, the pain in the wound 
left me, and I began to grow stronger; the 
pus from the wound began to dry up, and 
in ten days or two weeks more disappeared 
altogether. 

After I got well I was discharged from 
the army for physical disability and placed 
on the pension roll at six dollars a month; 



174 ANOTHER OPEEATION. 

in a short time it was increased to eight 
dollars, then to a full pension. After the 
M'ar closed. Congress enacted a law increas- 
ing the rate, and I am now receiving twenty- 
four dollars a month. All the pieces of bone 
extracted from my wound were placed in a 
box and kept as a war relic. In 1874 my 
wife was showing them to some lady visitors 
and then put the box on the mautel-piece. 
The hired girl, in cleaning the room, uncon- 
scious of the contents of the box, threw it in 
the fire; and thus perished a war relic which 
money could not have purchased. 

The soldiers of the AVar of the Eebellion 
have been liberally cared for by the govern- 
ment, which their valor saved from being 
overthrown by the mad passion of the South- 
ern slave holding oligarchy. The preserva- 
tion of the Union cost many hundred mil- 
lion dollars and many hundred thousand 
lives; but the cost in men and money was 
none too great in view of the results. The 



ANOTHER OPERATION. 175 

soldiers of the Union Army have bequeathed 
to their descendants, a rich inheritance, 
for which they will be honored by a grateful 
country as long as civilized man inhabits the 
earth. 



176 A WINTEK ON THE ElO GIUNDE. 



CHAPTEli XXI. 

A WINTER ON THE RIO GRANDE. 

^YifnE lower L'io Grande Eiver, as all kuow, 
^^ is the divisioii line of the United States 
and theEepuhlic of Mexico. The people on the 
American side of the river are largely Mexi- 
cans. They are nearly all mixed with In- 
dian blood. This fact was pointed out to me 
by a catholic priest as proving the superior- 
ity of the Spaniard over the Englishman, or 
rather the superiority of the Catliolic over 
the Protestant forms of the Christian relig- 
ion in dealing with the Indian tribes. Said 
he : "You Englishmen killed off the In- 
dians as you did the wild animals which in- 
habited the country, whereas we Spaniards, 
having in mind the teachings of the Savior, 
settled among the natives, intermarried with 
tliem and converted them to Christianity." 
'^ell," said I, "it is better to destroy a 



A WINTER ON THE RIO GRANDE. 177 

whole people at once than to lower the stand- 
ard of man by intermarrying with a savage 
race, incapable of civilization." 

"But," replied my clerical friend, who was 
a native Spaniard, "the race was not lowered ; 
we Christianized the Indians; the form of 
government in Mexico is the same as yours; 
the Mexican people are your equals in all 
that make up Christian civilization. They 
wrested the country from the grasp of Span- 
ish oppression as the Americans did from 
the British yoke." "But," said I, "the Mexi- 
cans are several hundred years behind the 
Americans; they are not a brave and aggres 
sive people like the Americans; look how a 
few thousand volimteers, hastily gathered 
together, invaded Mexico in 1846, overran 
the country, defeating the Mexicans in every 
battle with vastly inferior numbers." 

"Why, no," he interposed, "the Ameri- 
cans outnumbered the Mexicans five to one. 
Take Texas out of the Union and Mexico 



178 A WINTER ON THE RIO GRANDE. 

can whip the United States today." "Why 
bless your soul, Father/' said I, "they could 
not whip the little state of Ehode Island." 

Tile Mexican people are very superstitious. 
At a funeral a number of the mourners 
march ahead of the corpse, firing guns to 
keep the devil away. Wlien they fill up the 
grave they bore holes in the mound in which 
they insert lighted candles. I counted 50 
candles on a new made grave. The head- 
stones are made of boards, to which is at- 
tached a small frame, with a glass front. The 
epitaphs are enclosed in these frames and 
are in wi'iting. I noted down two of them 
in my note-book. They read as follows : 

Aqui yo assen los restus joben, Quirino 
Vallareal, a la carde edad de 18 anos 26 diaz. 
Su Mama and hermonos dedican esta re- 
quierdo. 

The translation would read something like 
this: 



A WINTER ON THE RIO GRANDE. 179 

Here rest the remains of Quirine Villareal, 
who died at the early age of 18 years and 
36 days. His mother and brothers dedicate 
this epitaph to his memory. 

The second read : Basiolios C Obrego f el- 
licio el 8 de Febere de 1901 a la edad de 19 
anos. Su padres Be&sillio y Virginia Obrego 
consagran esta recuerdoa su memoria, the 
English of which would be something like 
this: Bassilios C, Obrigo died on the 8 of 
February, 1901, aged 19 years. His parents, 
Bassilios and Virginia C. Obrego have conse- 
crated this to his memory. 

In the village of Minera, where I spent 
most of my time during the three months so- 
journ, the chief industry is coal mining. The 
mail comes in once a day at noon. Then 
the whole population of the mines come 
swarming into the post office, which is lo- 
cated in the company store. The postmis- 
tress, a young Mexican girl, calls out the 
address of every letter, and although there 



180 A WINTER ON THE RIO GRANDE. 

are not a half a dozen come for the Mexi- 
cans, they stay until the last letter is called 
out. Every fifth one of them has the given 
name of Jesus, and it strikes the traveler 
with amusement to hear such names called 
out in the post office as Jesus de Leon. They 
own burros innumerable — ^small donkeys — 
which make night hideous with their un- 
earthly yells. They are often called Jesus, 
too; but with reason, for they are meek and 
lowly, and carry heavy burdens on tlieir 
backs. The Americans call them Eio Grande 
Nightingales, because of their nightly mu- 
sic's roar. 

The Mexicans who are called Jesus fail to 
remember what the sacred name confers, for 
they nearly all carry daggers, which they 
carry in the right hand under the cover of 
a blanket, which serves as an overcoat during 
tbe prevalence of a Norther. Their favorite 
drink is mescal, a kind of whiskey made out 
of a native plant. It is very strong and 



A WINTER ON THE RIO GRANDE. 181 

might be called a fighting whiskey; a few 
drinks make them drunk and spoiling for a 
fight. When sober they are not quarrelsome, 
but in their cups they use their daggers 
without much provocation; sometimes with- 
out any provocation. They, however, have a 
wholesome respect for Americans; for the 
frontiersman is still handy with his gun, 
when necessity requires him to use it. 

No state in the Union surpasses or equals 
Texas in the provision made for the educa- 
tion of its people. There are three grades 
of certificates issued to teachers of the com- 
mon schools. A teacher holding the highest 
grade is paid eighty dollars a month ; the sec- 
ond grade, sixty dollars, and the third, forty 
dollars. No matter how small the attend- 
ance, nor how primary the studies taught, a 
teacher holding the highest grade certificate 
gets eighty dollars per month. In the village 
of Minera all the pupils are Mexicans. None 
of them can speak English, yet they are taught 



182 A WINTER ON THE RIO GR-INDE. 

in English, as the laws of Texas provide. 
They learn their lessons by rote; understand 
what the teachers say, but the moment school 
lets out they are all back at Spanish again. 
Even those who can speak English will not 
acknowledge it. I visited the schools by in- 
vitation of the teachers, and watched the 
pupils. They added up their sums in Span- 
ish and then translated them into English. 
As a rule, neither strict veracity nor honesty 
are virtues among the Mexican people. One 
of them sat down in the seat with me while 
traveling in Texas. I asked him in Span- 
jish if he could speak English. (Habla 
usted Anglice). He answered in the nega- 
tive. Later I went into the smoking car and 
asked a passenger in the seat in front to keep 
his eye on my grip and overcoat, for I un- 
derstand the Mexican greasers are rather 
nimble-fingered. The Mexican roared with 
laughter and said in very good English: "I 
will neither steal your satchel nor overcoat." 



A WINTER ON THE RIO GRANDE. 183 

One day I was taking a stroll along the 
banks of the Kio Grande River, and over- 
took a small boy pushing an empty barrel 
for amusement. He could not have been 
more than five or six years of age, and did 
not understand English, yet with every 
push he gave the barrel, he exclaimed, ''God 
damn." 

The Mexicans call the Americans Grin- 
goes. They mean this as a word of reproach, 
but the Americans pay no attention to it. 
I have read somewhere that the word was 
coined during the Mexican war. The Amer- 
ican soldiers on the march and in the bivouac 
used to sing one of Burns' songs, "Green 
Grows the Rushes 0," and the Mexicans in 
derision named them Gringoes. They 
never call an American this name to his face. 

Among the Mexican women the social 
event of the week is washing day. They go 
down to the river in groups of from two to 
a dozen carrying their washing in baskets. 



184 A WINTER ON THE RIO GRANDE, 

Each has a stone on the river bank which 
she uses for a washboard. The women sit 
down by the waters' edge, immerse a garment 
in the water, then use soap on it, lave water 
over it and rub and cliat and laugh the day 
away. Some of them turn out a washing of 
spotless purity. They have few wants to 
gratify, and have plenty of time for social 
pleasure, and are quite happy. As a rule 
they have beautiful black hair, and teeth of 
ivory whiteness. Toothache is almost un- 
known among them. 

The Eio Grande River is about 150 yards 
wide at Minera; and except 30 yards on the 
Mexican side, it will not in ordinary stages 
of water take a bather up to the breast. From 
March to December the miners wash in the 
river on returning from the toils of the day. 
The whole family take a swim and as many 
as four hundred people of both sexes and all 
ages will be in swimming at once. Many 
of the women combine against a man to duck 



A WINTER ON THE RIO GRANDE. 185 

him, and there is much fun and laughter 
indulged in. The river is sometimes black 
with the multitude of bathers. 

The Americans who have been raised 
amongst them say they are on the whole a 
moral people. A young man is never allowed 
to be in the company of a young woman 
alone — the father or mother or sister being 
invariably present. Girls never walk out 
alone — always in pairs or more. The mo- 
ther accompanies the daughter to a dance, 
and the young man who wishes her company 
must first consult the mother. At the close 
of the dance he must return her to her 
mother. On social occasions the young men 
walk in pairs by themselves and the young 
women do the same. They exchange glances 
as they pass but must not stop to speak. 

During the invasion of Mexico by the 
French, who planted Maximillian on a 
throne, with the title of Emperor, for the 
purpose, as Napoleon the Third expressed it. 



186 A WINTER ON THE RIO GRANDE. 

of restoring the ascendency of the Latin 
race, tlie Mexican priests of the Catholic 
church took sides against their country. 
After the expulsion of the French and the 
overthrow^ and death of Maximillian, the 
Mexican Congress enacted a law forbidding 
a priest to wear a clerical suit and declaring 
that no marriage solemnized by a priest 
would be legal. The result is that in order 
to make assurance doubly sure, the marriage 
ceremony is a double one generally — that 
is, the parties are married both by the church 
and by the state. 

During my visit a young Mexican living 
on the Texas side of the Eio Grande, who 
had concluded to take a life partner for bet- 
ter or for worse, sent for the priest at La- 
redo, 25 miles below Minera, to come up 
and marry him. The priest came with his 
clerical vestments, and rented the school- 
house in which to perform the sacrament of 
marriage. According to a rule of the church. 



A WINTER ON THE RIO GRANDE. 187 

marriage ceremonies are performed in the 
forenoon. The Mexican, however, desired to 
be married that afternoon, as he had ar- 
ranged for a dance in honor of the event. 
But the priest would not yield, whereupon 
the Mexican lost his temper and said to the 
priest, "If you do not marry me this after- 
noon you shall not marry me at all." 
"What !" exclaimed the priest, "Are you not 
a Catholic ?" "Yes," replied the bridegroom, 
"I am a Catholic, but I am no d — d fool, 
like you." And off went the youthful pair 
to the 'squire, and were made one flesh by 
the laws of Texas, and on went the dance in 
the evening. The priest had to stay in the 
village all night, there being no afternoon 
train. And thus Satan, who goes about like 
a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour, 
gets his work in, even against the servants 
of the church. 

The Mexicans whom I have been describ- 
ing belong to the peon class and represent 



188 A WINTER ON THE RIO GIUNDE. 

the poorest and most ignorant part of the 
people. The ruling class in Mexico are the 
Castilians. They are an unmixed race of 
white blood, are very proud, of erect figure, 
and are very enterprising. The peon is on 
the lowest round of the ladder of civiliza- 
tion. Many of these people live in Jackells 
— houses built out of long reeds resembling 
corn-stalks, in which there is neither a door 
nor a window. They sleep on the bare 
ground, with a sheep-skin for a mattress. 
They have neither chair, nor table, nor 
knife, nor fork in the Jackell, and live on 
the poorest and coarsest of food. A fire is 
made in the middle of the house between 
two stones, on which a gi'iddle is placed to 
bake their bread. 

The bread is made out of corn meal in the 
following manner: Two stones, one hollow 
like a bowl, the other round like a ball, are 
used for breaking up the corn into meal ; the 
corn, after being shelled, is placed in the 



A WINTEK ON THE RIO GRANDE. 189 

bowl and mashed with the round stone. It 
is then converted into dough, by a judicious 
mixture of water, flattened into cakes by 
hand, then baked on the griddle; there is 
nothing but the water and corn in the cake 
— not even a grain of salt. Another dish 
they make is called chiliconcarne, which is 
so charged with pepper that a single bite 
suffices for an American. 

The better class of these peons, however, 
live in company houses which will compare 
favorably with many of the company houses 
in Jackson county. They live fairly well, 
but the Mexican miner never, except in rare 
cases, lays up anything for a rainy day. 
They follow their loaded car out of the mine, 
get the weight, take it to the office and get 
its value in checks, good in the company's 
store for their face value in groceries. 

On the frontiers the spirit of patriotism 
is much stronger than in the great industrial 
centers of the country, where the commer- 



190 A WINTER ON THE RIO GRANDE. 

cial spirit is becoming paramount to every 
nobler feeling. This was well illustrated on 
the occasion of Washington's birthday. La- 
reda is a large frontier town on the Amer- 
ican side of the Eio Grande, twenty-five 
miles below Minera. It contains 17,500 in- 
habitants, of whom 3,500 are Americans, and 
14,000 are Mexicans. The whole of the in- 
habitants, American and Mexican, spent 
weeks in preparation for the forthcoming 
celebration of the birth of the Father of 
His Country. It was a day never to be 
forgotten. 

At 8 o'clock in the morning there was a 
procession of the military, consisting of two 
companies of infantry, one being regulars, 
the other state militia. After parading the 
town they drew up at the Market Hall, one 
company being stationed on each side of the 
building. In a few minutes 150 Indians, 
some of them real Indians, but the majority 
cowboys painted and dressed in Indian cos- 



A WINTER ON THE RIO GRANDE. 191 

tume, advanced in front of the Hall and a 
sham battle^ that looked to an old soldier 
as_ the real thing itself, commenced. 
The firing was sustained for about fifteen 
minutes, when the Indians charged the sol- 
diers and drove them away in utter dis- 
comfiture. The red devils brought forward 
scaling ladders, and mounted them in the 
face of a severe fire from the windows, and 
took the Hall amidst loud shouts. The 
mayor of the city handed over the keys to 
Pocahontas amidst the yells of the savages, 
who danced their war dance, and held up 
the keys in triumph to the vast concourse of 
people who witnessed the attack. Pocahon- 
tas, who was mounted on a fiery charger, led 
the Indians. She was a magnificent horse- 
woman, the daughter of a livery stableman 
of the town, and was said to be the best 
horseback rider in Texas. After she exhib- 
ited her skill and daring as a horsewoman 
by prancing and galloping over the town in 



192 A WINTER ON THE RIO GRANDE. 

genuine Indian style, a procession of car- 
riages, drawn by horses decorated with light 
yellow tapestry, paraded the streets. The 
most prominent citizens of the two republics 
sat in the carriages, the Americans bearing 
aloft life-sized portraits of Washington, Lin- 
coln and Roosevelt; the Mexicans following 
Avith likenesses of Guadaloupe Victoria, the 
first president of Mexico; Juarez, the libera- 
tor of Mexico from the domination of the 
priests, who separated church and state, and 
made marriage a civil contract; and lastly, 
Diaz, the present president. 

At eight o'clock in the evening, the whole 
population and visitors, the latter numbering 
5,000, met on the banks of the river to wit- 
ness Washington crossing the Delaware. The 
banks of the river on both sides were illum- 
inated with electric lights and torches. The 
camp fires of Washington's army were plain- 
ly visible from the American side of the 
river. The little army, with Washington in 



A WINTER ON THE RIO GRANDE. 193 

the lead, marched down the river and stepped 
into tlie boats, and were rowed across, 
amidst the loud shouts of the vast 
crowd. Washington stood up in the front 
boat with his military cloak wrapped around 
him, in the pose which we see in the pictorial 
histories of the Eevolutionary War. 

Meantime the camp fires were left burning 
to deceive the enemy. The scene was very 
realistic. There were seven bands of music 
on the ground, and as Washington and his 
little army were being rowed across the river 
music rose with its voluptuous swell, all play- 
ing Dixie; but when the patriotic army 
landed on the Texas side they struck up 
Yankee Doodle. On leaving the Mexican 
shore, the cheering partook of the rebel yell, 
but on landing, the loud hurrah of the union 
army was in evidence. The cheering was in 
compliment to the two war tunes, and was 
given by citizens of the North and South in 
one voice by pre-arrangement. 



194 A WINTER ON TUE lUO GiUNDE. 

The members of the Texas Legislature 
and the state liouse officials came down from 
Austin to witness the celebration. The ho- 
tels and private residences of the city were 
unable to accommodate the visitors and many 
had to bivouac on the bank of the river dur- 
ing the night. The day was warm and 
bahiiy like a day in early June in Ohio. 

The climate in Southwestern Texas is 
semi-tropical. The winters are short and 
mikl. It seldom freezes and never snows, 
but the weather is variable; when the wind 
changes to tlie north during winter a cold 
windy spell of weather follows, lasting 40 or 
50 liours. This is the norther we read about 
in the papers. 

During snmmer tliere is a good breeze com- 
ing u]) the valley, which cools the air, and 
makes life endurable. In Mexico the people, 
during the hot season, suspend all labor and 
business — even the street cars are stopped 
— and take a '''siesta" for about three hours. 



A WINTER ON THE RIO GRANDE. 195 

The following story, which is literally 
true, illustrates the treacherous character of 
the Mexican. A mile and a half below Min- 
era there is a Mexican town called Columbia. 
It is situated on the banks of the Eio Grande 
on the Mexican side of the river. The peo- 
ple are fond of bull fighting. They used 
home talent and tame bulls. I witnessed 
one of the fights and was disgusted with it 
and left the arena before the fight was fin- 
ished. The bulls would not fight; the mata- 
dors were not expert, and the sport was not 
worth looking at. 

The people decided that native talent and 
home-bred bulls made too tame sport and 
sent to Monterey for a famous matador 
and purchased some of the fiercest bulls in 
Mexico. The sport now became exciting. 
The bull ring was crowded with enthusias- 
tic spectators at every performance. Now, 
it happened that Columbia boasts of one very 
beautiful senorita. There are other fair 



196 A WINTER ON THE RIO GRANDE. 

senoritas in Columbia but this one was easily 
the first ; she would be counted beautiful any- 
where. Every Sunday (for the bull fights 
occur on Sunday), at the Plaza del Torres, 
she shone splendidly and captured the heart 
of the famous matador, who had had count- 
less hearts at his feet, because of the expert 
Avay he could kill a bull. Although there 
might be thousands to applaud his deeds he 
fought for this girl alone. But her heart 
remained untouched by him; for she loved 
a miner boy of Minera. 

The matador, finding he could not impress 
the fair Theresa, became jealous of her lover 
and vowed revenge. The night on which the 
miner became aclmowledged as the future 
husband of the girl and the friends were 
merry-making at her father'? house, the mat- 
ador waited outside until the party dis- 
persed, with murder glancing in his hag- 
gard eye. As the young miner stepped out- 
side, the matador plunged his sword into 



A WINTER ON THE RIO GRANDE. 197 

his body and such was the force of the blow 
that the sword pierced him through. The 
matador laughed as the people rushed to- 
ward him and disarmed him. 

They seldom hang a man in Mexico. It 
is a custom among the people to revenge 
themselves on those they hate by personal 
violence and murder. 

While walking one day I was introduced 
to a Southern soldier; a splendid specimen 
of the Johnny Eeb. We soon drifted into 
a discussion of the Civil War, and found 
that we had both been in the battle of Gaines 
Mill, on opposite sides, and both been very 
severely wounded in the battle. I told him 
that I had witnessed a splendid charge on 
one of our batteries. "Well," said he, "I 
was wounded in that charge." He lived in 
San Antonio, but was visitinsr his sister at 
Lerido. When he went for dinner he told 
his sister that he had met the Yankee who 
shot him, but he had shot the Yankee worse 
than he had shot him. 



198 RECOLLECTIONS OF LIXCOLN. 



CHAPTER XXII. 

THE LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATE LINCOLN 

REVIEWS THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC. 

^»HORTLY after Illinois was admitted 
<^^ into the Union two young men settled 
in the wooden capital of the new state. One 
came from Kentucky, the other from Ver- 
mont; one was a common rail-splitter, the 
otlier a common carpenter. Abraham Lin- 
coln was the name of the rail-splitter, 
Stephen Arnold Douglas the name of the car- 
penter. Nature had stamped her signet 
mark of genius on the foreheads of both. 
Douglas developed early. He was a member 
of the United States Senate at thirty-three. 
In those days there were giants in the Sen- 
ate, but Douglas soon forged to the front 
and held his own with the best. 

Slavery had been a disturbing element 
since the formation of the Union. The 




Mr. Roy Delivering Address al ihe Lincoln Centennial 

on the Lincoln and Douglas Debate. 

Delivered at Wellston, Ohio, February 14. 1909. 



RECOLLECTIOXS OF LINCOLN. 199 

Missouri Compromise, which was enacted in 
1820 prohibited it in the Territories forever; 
and it was now believed that it never would 
again disturb the public mind. A subse- 
quent decision of the Supreme Court, how- 
ever, was handed down by Chief Justice 
Tawny, which declared the Missouri Com- 
promise unconstitutional ; and Senator Doug- 
las soon afterward introduced a bill in the 
Senate for the abrogation of the law. 

The Slavery agitation now burst out anew 
with intensified fury. A new party wad 
organized in every Northern state, composed 
of old line Whigs, Free Soil Democrats and 
Abolitionists, to replace the Whig party, 
which had been beaten to a frazzle. 

Abraham Lincoln, who had been a rail- 
splitter, a flat-boatman, a country store- 
keeper, a local post-master, a land surveyor, 
a member of the state legislature, and had 
served one term in Congress, was nominated 
by the new party for United States Senator 



200 RECOLLECTIONS OF LINCOLN. 

against Douglas, who had recently been 
nominated by the Democrats for a third 
term. In his speech accepting the nomin- 
ation, Lincoln uttered the following proph- 
etic words: 

"A house divided against itself cannot 
stand. I believe that this government can- 
not exist half slave and half free. I do not 
expect the Union to be dissolved; I do not 
expect the house to fall; but I do expect that 
it will cease to be divided. It will become 
all one thing or all the other. Either the 
opponents of slavery will arrest its further 
spread, and place it where the public mind 
shall rest in the belief that it is in course of 
ultimate extinction, or its advocates will push 
it forward till it shall become alike lawful in 
all the states — old as well as new, north as 
well as south." 

Lincoln soon after his nomination chal- 
lenged Douglas to a joint debate on the issues 
of the campaign. The challenge irritated 



RECOLLECTIONS OF LINCOLN. 201 

Douglas. He was the leader of his party, 
and had a national reputation; while Lin- 
coln was comparatively unknown outside the 
state of Illinois. "But," said Douglas, "I 
will have to accept the challenge, for Lincoln 
is the nominee of his party for my place in 
the United States Senate." How little did 
Douglas know that in less than two and a 
half years Lincoln would be standing on the 
portico of the Capitol reading his inaugural 
address as president of the United States, 
and at his death bequeath to his countrymen 
a name as the greatest American since the 
foundation of the government, not excepting 
Washington himself. 

Seven debates were arranged. I was 
working in a coal mine near Galesburg when 
the fifth debate occurred, and rode up to the 
town on the same train which carried 
Douglas. 

The debate took place in the Knox College 
grounds. The number of people present 



202 RECOLLECTIONS OF LINCOLN. 

was estimated at twenty thousand. The Bur- 
roTinding towns and villages turned out en 
masse. Farmers came in their wagons, 
bringing their wives, their sons and daugh- 
ters, in rain and storm, for twenty miles 
round about, to witness the great intellectual 
encounter between the two greatest orators 
in the state, if not in the nation. 

Douglas led in the discussion in an hour^s 
speech; Lincoln followed with an hour and 
a half, Douglas closing with a half hour. 
The seven debates were very largely a repe- 
tition of each other. Douglas began his 
address with a defence of the repeal of the 
Missouri Compromise, and then expounded 
what he called his great principle of Popular 
Sovereignty, which conferred the right of 
all the people to take their property into 
every territory of the United States, subject 
to no other limitation than what the Consti- 
tution imposes. In the formation of a new 
state he said he did not care whether slavery 



RECOLLECTIONS OF LINCOLN. 203 

was voted up or voted down. The political 
principles which he stood for were national 
in character. The speech he was now 
making he could deliver in any state of the 
Union; whereas Mr. Lincoln would not dare 
to deliver the speech he will make today in 
any Southern state, for as soon as he ap- 
proached the Ohio Eiver he would find the 
people on the ather side shaking their fists 
in his face. 

Douglas insisted that negi'oes were not 
included in the Declaration of Independence, 
and that it was a slander to even suppose 
that negroes were meant to be included in it. 
He called Lincoln an abolitionist, and that 
he wanted to marry a "nigger" wife. He 
charged Lincoln with having assisted in 
passing a set of abolition resolutions at a 
Eepublican meeting in Springfield in 1854. 
He was haughty and domineering in argu- 
ment. His followers called him the "Little 
Giant"; the Republicans called him the 



204 RECOLLECTIONS OF LINCOLN. 

"Little Dodger." Both names were very 
appropriate 

When Lincoln rose to reply the contrast 
between the make-up of the two men was 
striking. Douglas was only five feet four 
inches in height. He was, however, strongly 
Iniilt; of handsome features and a well- 
laised forehead. Lincoln was six feet four, 
lean of person and uncouth of form. His 
clothes hung awkwardly on his gigantic 
frame ; his features were exceedingly homely ; 
he had large hands and feet. But in all the 
virtues which men admire, and which the 
religion of Jesus Christ inculcates, he sur- 
passed any public man of his time. He was 
honor and lionesty impersonified. When he 
began to speak he was diffident and hesitat- 
ing; but as he warmed up, he became self- 
reliant. He made few gestures and never 
moved his feet nor posed. When he wished 
tc clinch a statement he bent his body back- 
ward and forward, and shook his massive 



RECOLLECTIONS OF LINCOLN. 205 

head. When he described the wrong and 
wickedness of human slavery he raised his 
right arm aloft and brought it down with 
tremendous energy. 

Answering Douglas' assertion that negroes 
were not included in the Declaration of In- 
dependence he defied him to show that, up 
till three years ago (when the exigencies of 
the Democratic party made it a necessity to 
invent the affirmation that negroes were not 
included in the Declaration of Independ- 
ence), that Thomas Jefferson ever said so, 
that Washington ever said so; that Douglas 
himself ever said so, or that any living man 
ever said so. Lincoln propounded four 
questions to Douglas. The second one was 
fraught with tremendous consequences: 
'"Can the people of a United States Terri- 
tory, in any lawful manner against the wishes 
of any citizen of the United States, exclude 
slavery within its borders, prior to the for- 
mation of a state constitution?" Lincoln's 



206 RECOLLECTIONS OF LINCOLN. 

friends advised him not to put the question, 
for Douglas would either answer yes, or 
straddle it, which will elect him Senator. 
"Well," answered Lincoln, "If he does it will 
enrage the South, and defeat his nomination 
for the presidency." "Well, where do you 
come in? "Oh," he replied, "I am after 
bigger game. I want to clip the wings of 
the 'Little Giant.' He has had the presiden- 
tial itch for the past eight years; the battle 
of 1860 is worth a hundred of this." Lin- 
coln put the question and Douglas answered 
as follows: "It matters not what way the 
Supreme Court may hereafter decide as to 
the abstract question whether slavery may or 
may not go into a territory under the Con- 
stitution, the people have the lawful means 
to introduce or exclude it as they please ; for 
the reason that slavery cannot exist a day or 
an hour anywhere unless it is supported by 
local police regulations." 



EECOLLECTIONS OF LINCOLN. 207 

This answer greatly pleased the Democrats 
of Illinois and other JSTorthern states; but it 
angered the South, and Douglas was de- 
nounced as having betrayed the Democratic 
party, by the Southern "fire-eaters." The 
Democrats of Illinois carried the Legislature 
and Douglas was re-elected, altho the Eepub- 
licans carried the state by a majority of five 
thousand, if my memory serves me right. 
Douglas' answer split the Democratic party 
in two, and practically precipitated the 
Civil War two years later. It made Lincoln 
president. 

Lincoln denied that he had been at the 
meeting which passed the abolition resolu- 
tions, and in turn charged Douglas and two 
associates with having concocted them. "And 
yet," exclaimed Lincoln, with great irony, 
"Each of the three regard each other as 
honorable men." While Lincoln was charg- 
ing Douglas as having forged the resolutions, 
Douglas took the cigar out of his mouth. 



208 RECOLLECTIONS OF LINCOLN. 

turned up his fine face toward Lincoln, scorn 
and anger overspreading it. 

When Douglas rose to reply he was greeted 
with tumultuous cheers^ and it was fully five 
minutes before he could be heard. "My 
friends," he exclaimed, "the highest compli- 
ment you can pay me during the brief half 
hour that is left to address you is not to 
cheer. I want every moment of my time to 
reply to Abraham Lincoln." 

He angrily denied that he had forged the 
resolutions, and declared that he would not 
have believed till this day that Abraham 
Lincoln would have said what he had said 
this hour. "Does Lincoln," he exclaimed, 
with indignation, "wish to push this thing 
to the point of personal quarrel ?" 

It turned out that both were wrong. It 
was an abolition meeting, and a very small 
one, that passed the resolutions which Doug- 
las read, Lincoln was not at the meeting and 
know nothing about them. Douglas was 



RECOLLECTIONS OF LINCOLN, 209 

under tlie impression that the resolutions 
were passed at a Eepublican meeting, and 
that Lincoln had assisted in having them 
adopted. 

During the intervals between the joint de- 
bates both candidates addressed meetings, 
but at different places. At one of these 
gatherings, Douglas (who had been indulg- 
ing in the flowing bowl with a number 
of friends before the meeting), called 
Lincoln a liar and a sneak, and threatened to 
c^ll him to account on the field of honor. A 
man in the crowd, more fuddled than Doug- 
las, took off his coat and offered to take the 
job off his hands, and lick Lincoln, himself. 
Lincoln addressed a Eepublican meeting at 
the same place the following day. He 
asked the audience if any-body heard Doug- 
las talk of fighting him at the meeting yes- 
terday ? Cl'ies of "Yes," came in reply. "I 
have been informed," added Lincoln, "that a 
i-'mn in the crowd, more excited than Doug- 



RECOLLECTIONS OF LINCOLN. 

las, shed his coat and threatened to whip 
Lincoln, himself. Did anybody hear this 
^varlike proceeding?" Cries of "Yes" came 
from a score of stentorian lungs. "Well, my 
friends," added Lincoln, "I would not advise 
any of you to bet on a battle; because Doug- 
las and I are the best of friends; he would 
no more think of fighting me than he would 
of fighting Ms wife, and if I can't get a 
fight out of Douglas, I can't get one out of 
his bottle-holder." 

The next time I had the honor of seeing 
Lincoln the Civil War had burst upon the 
country like an avalanche. The battle of Bull 
Run had been fought ; the president had call- 
ed for five hundred thousand men to suppress 
the rebellion. The Army of the Potomac, 
a hundred and fifty thousand strong, had 
been so well drilled that they looked like 
regulars. There was to be a grand review, 
and the President came across the Potomac 
with his cabinet and representatives of for- 



RECOLLECTIONS OF LINCOLN. 211 

eign governmeiits. I was on guard when 
the troops were formed in column of divis- 
ion. The guards were relieved from duty 
with leave to go where they pleased. As 
soon as we stacked arms we threw our belts 
on the bayonets and walked down to the 
head of the column on the right flank. The 
President was in front and a little to the 
right on horseback. His long legs nearly 
touched the ground, and his stove-pipe hat 
was stuck on the back of his head. He was 
waiting on Generals Butler and Mansfield. 
His nose became itchy and he rubbed it with 
the fore-finger of his right hand with great 
energy but with little dignity. One of the 
boys in the front rank said, loud enough for 
the President to hear the remark: "By 
GU>d, there is not enough dignity there for a 
President of the United States." 

Generals Butler and Mansfield soon came 
along in a two-horse carriage, and when 
within fifty yards of Lincoln wheeled to the 



212 RECOLLECTIONS OF LINCOLN. 

right to drive to the reviewing stand. The 
President roared after them, "Butler, halt/' 
and the two generals and the President after 
shaking hands started down to the review 
stand. He appeared to be as plain and 
imassuming as when he was standing 
on the speakers' platfrom at Gales- 
burg, Illinois, when he had his famous de- 
bate with Senator Douglas. The guards 
walked down to the reviewing stand. The 
President and his Cabinet, and the foreign 
representatives and a number of ladies were 
on the stand. I could not keep my eyes ofE 
Simon Cameron, Secretary of War. I 
thought he was the finest specimen of a cul- 
tured man I had ever seen. His face was 
clean-cut and of an aristocratic mould; his 
rye was as clear and as penetrating as that of 
an eagle. The Secretary of State, Wm. H. 
Seward, was also a man of bright, intelligent 
features; but Cameron riveted my eyes. His 
brother, Colonel John Cameron, had been 



RECOLLECTIONS OF LINCOLN. 213 

killed at the Battle of Bull Eun the preced- 
ing summer, as wild and high the Cameron 
pibroch rose — the war-note of Locheil, — 
while leading the 79th New York Highland- 
ers in a charge. 

General McClellan and his staff rode at 
the head of the column of the Army of the 
I'otomac. The general was dressed in all the 
paraphernalia of his rank. Solomon in all 
his glory was not arrayed like him. He was 
a fine-looking soldier, rather short in stature, 
but had a well-knit frame. He wore im- 
mense army gloves, which reached up to his 
elbows. His hat was adorned with feathers; 
his belts were made of cloth of gold. His 
eye was bright ; his forehead broad ; his form 
and bearing the beau-ideal of a soldier. He 
had organized the finest army of citizen sol- 
diers on this planet. But he did not know 
how to fight them — there was always a lion 
in his path. The real general, the modest, 
unassuming soldier, the man of few words 



214 RECOLLECTIONS OF LINCOLN. 

but mighty deeds, came at last and ham- 
mered the life out of the rebellion. 

Two months ago I stood in the rotunda of 
the Capitol in Washington gazing on the 
marble statue of Lincoln. His large feet 
were planted firmly on the marble pedestal. 
His large hands and long arms hung care- 
lessly by his sides — reminders of the days of 
his youth and his poverty, when he plodded 
over the prairies of Illinois to split rails for 
a living. His shrewd, kindly eye; his mas- 
sive forehead; his homely, expressive fea- 
tures; his towering form, bending slightly 
forward as when he stood half a century 
ago on the speakers' platform at Gales- 
burg, Illinois, and cast his eyes over the vast 
multitude of men and women who had as- 
sembled from village and farm, town and 
city to hear the issues of the most exciting 
political campaign discussed since the for- 
mation of the Union, by the ablest orators in 
the State of Illinois. But vain was all the 



RECOLLECTIONS OF LINCOLN, 215 

eloquence of the two massive statesmen. The 
sword alone could settle the question at issue, 
and it took the bloodiest war in all history 
to settle it. 

When the mad passions of the Southern 
oligarchy precipitated the Civil War, Douglas 
threw his whole soul into the conflict for the 
preservation of the Union. The last speech 
he ever made was burning with manly elo- 
quence in support of Lincoln's administra- 
tion. "Whoever is not for the Union is 
against the Union; in this war there can be 
nothing but patriots and traitors," he ex- 
claimed. He died three months after Lin- 
coln's inauguration. Had he lived Lincoln 
would have made him Secretary of War. 

Lincoln's fame has been constantly rising 
since the day that the bullet of a mad assas- 
sin pierced his brain. From that day he 
belonged to the nations and the ages. He 
died that the government which the valor 



216 RECOLLECTIONS OF LINCOLN, 

and genius of Washington established might 
live. 

Washington was the father of his country, 
Lincoln was its savior. 



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